ECONOMIC POLICY

Knowledge and understanding
The course aims at pointing out the role of the economic policy at the national and international level where market failures occur. The most relevant issues in the analysis of macroeconomic policy within the competing macroeconomic paradigms are described.
Applying knowledge and understanding
The student has to be able to understand the different reasons explaining public-sector intervention in the economy and to judge the impact of economic policy on the competitive capacity of an entire economic system.

Lectures, participatory and interactive classes, peer-instruction, peer-studying and peer-assessment platforms. In addition, exercises, analyses and discussions of data, facts and institutional interventions on current economic policy issues. Should teaching be carried out in mixed mode or remotely, it may be necessary to introduce changes with respect to previous statements, in line with the programme planned and outlined in the syllabus.

Institutional part:

• Economic policy and its goals: economic policy and conflict, the normative theory of economic policy, the fundamentals of the welfare economics, the identification of collective aims according to the "new" economics of well-being, micro and macroeconomic goals.
• Microeconomic policies to correct market failures: Market power, antitrust policies, externalities, strategic interdependence as a cause of market failure, public goods, goods of merit and demerit, asymmetric information.
• Redistributive policies: income distribution and social well-being, the welfare state, industrial policies, regional policies.
• Macroeconomic policies: macroeconomic disequilibrium, fiscal policy, monetary policy, inflation and anti-inflationary policies, the Phillips curve and labour policies, the balance of payments and exchange rates, the effects of macroeconomic policies in the open economy (the IS-LM-BP model), growth and development policies, economic policies in the European Union.

Special part: Euro crisis, austerity and government spending, growth and reforms of labour market

A) For the institutional part: Cellini, R. (2019), Politica economica. Introduzione ai modelli fondamentali (III edizione), Milano, McGrawHill.

B) For the special part:

1. Zezza G. (2012), “La crisi dell’euro: invertire la rotta o abbandonare la nave?”, in S. Cesaratto S. e M. Pivetti (a cura di), Oltre l’austerità, gli eBook di MicroMega/1 (www.micromega.net), pp. 99-116.
2. Palumbo A. (2012), “Quale spesa pubblica”, in S. Cesaratto S. e M. Pivetti (a cura di), Oltre l’austerità, gli eBook di MicroMega/1 (www.micromega.net), pp. 136-147.
3. Stirati A. (2012), “Crescita e “riforma” del mercato del lavoro”, in S. Cesaratto S. e M. Pivetti (a cura di), Oltre l’austerità, gli eBook di MicroMega/1 (www.micromega.net), pp. 148-160.