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Public Economics Lectures Part 1: Introduction

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Main Questions in Social Insurance<br />

1 Why have social (as opposed to private, or any) insurance?<br />

2 What type of SI system maximizes social welfare?<br />

Tradeoff between two forces:<br />

Benefits — reducing risk (fluctuations in consumption)<br />

Distortion — changes in incentives for workers and firms —> ineffi cient<br />

behavior and DWL<br />

Generate new distortions as you fix the problem you set out to solve<br />

—> second-best solution<br />

Identify optimal policy by combining theoretical models of social<br />

insurance with empirical evidence on program effects<br />

<strong>Public</strong> <strong>Economics</strong> <strong>Lectures</strong> () <strong>Part</strong> 6: Social Insurance 7 / 207

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