PUBLIC FINANCE A - L

Knowledge and understanding: students will acquire in-depth knowledge and understanding of the role that the State plays in market economies by means of financial tools and the definition of the game’s rules which all members of the society have to respect as far as their economic behaviour is concerned. Common to the extensive set of knowledge and skills acquired during the course is the possibility for the student to develop the understanding of the multiple aspects which distinguish the state’s decisional process with regard to allocation, stabilization and redistribution.

Applying knowledge and understanding: students will be able to properly evaluate the problems regarding the state’s presence in an economic system where different subjects, either public or private for-profit or private not-for-profit, interact.

Making judgements: students will acquire the ability to employ the economic approach to formulate their personal opinion, critical and freestanding, on those aspects that concern the state’s presence in a complex economic system, where subjects are expected to act in their own self-interest.

Communication skills: students will be able to communicate, in a clear and unambiguous way, to either experts or non-experts, their opinion concerning the state’s role in market economies, also through written works, diagrams and graphs, employing the existing information technologies for the presentation, acquisition and exchange of knowledge. Evaluation of the communication skills, in a concise and/or analytic form, will take place formally during the oral exam, leaving the possibility to evaluate students’ communication skills also through interactive interventions during the in-class lectures.

Learning skills: students will acquire a high learning capacity that will allow them to be autonomous in the management of their professional updating process concerning the evaluation of the activities that the state undertakes in an economic system through both budget management and regulation. This type of knowledge is nowadays of increasing importance mainly because of the debate on the best way to implement privatization policies.

The reasons for public intervention in market economy. Economic tools to assess public intervention in market economy. Welfare economics and public finance. Economics of public goods and public choice. Other causes of market failure. Introduction to taxation. More on taxation. Efficiency implications of taxation. Tax incidence in partial equilibrium. Decentralization and fiscal federalism. More on decentralization and fiscal federalism. Intergovernmental transfers. More on intergovernmental transfers. Public utilities and competion policies. Natural monopoly. Regulation of public utilities. Competion policies.

Paolo Bosi (a cura di), Corso di scienza delle finanze, il Mulino, Bologna, 2015, VII Edizione.

•Capitoli

1. Le ragioni dell’intervento pubblico

3. Teoria dell’imposta

5. Il decentramento fiscale

7. Servizi di pubblica utilità e politiche per la concorrenza