The main goal of this course is to practice and strengthen your ability to apply microeconomics to public policy issues. We will build on concepts and skills introduced in Econ 101 and focus on real-world applications to answer the question: “What can economists contribute to our understanding of major policy debates?”
To this end, learning objectives include:
- Students should understand the main microeconomic justifications for public policy, including theories of market failure and redistributive goals, and they should understand the main mechanisms for financing government.
- Students should be able to identify and apply appropriate microeconomic models and analytical techniques for a given policy context. This involves careful attention to key model assumptions and limitations and the ability to manipulate models to evaluate and compare policy options.
- Students should be familiar with the types of data and analysis commonly found in empirical microeconomic research on policy issues.
