Economic Analysis for Public Policy

Catalog description

Should the government directly regulate pollution or allow the market to determine levels of effluents? Should government pay farmers to reduce production of oversupplied crops, or is this an unfair government handout? Economists approach such questions using the basic microeconomic tools of their discipline. Understanding and being able to apply those tools is an essential part of the work of public policy analysts. This course, designed for students with little or no prior training in economics, gives students an overview of the tools and logic economists use in analyzing questions like those above, as well as many others. The focus will be on gaining a sound understanding and familiarity with the basic concepts and modes of analysis used in microeconomics so they can be applied to public policy questions. This includes first a basic overview of the behavior of consumers, firms, and labor markets, and based on this, the concepts of supply and demand, competition, and consumer and producer surplus. Students will learn how these influence the functioning of markets given that they may be imperfect, including problems of imperfect information, irrational behavior, and market failures associated with externalities and public goods. And third, this course will cover how these problems both play out in the demand for government goods and services and government's production decisions, as well as how these problems might be addressed using the tools of microeconomic analysis. Students will leave this course with a better understanding of how an economist approaches many contemporary policy debates and an ability to use microeconomic analysis to assess policy problems.