The course will focus on a range of topics in public economics including welfare estimation of tax and expenditure policies, including income and commodity taxation, public goods, education, and place-based policies. We will also discuss foundations for government intervention, including market failures such as externalities and asymmetric information. Throughout, the focus will be on using theoretical models to motivate empirical analyses to uncover the desirability of government intervention in the economy and to quantify the welfare impacts of such policies.

The course builds on the lessons of 2450A and in particular relates the empirical findings to the thoeretical results in optimal tax theory.