Paper - Academic Registry and Council Secretariat - Queen Mary ...

TPB2012-015
Section 2 - Module Specification
Module Title Economics of Public Policy
Module Code
Credit Value 15 Level 7 Mode of Delivery On Campus Semester Semester 2
Module Organiser
Dr Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay, Lecturer in Economics
Pre-requisite modules Co-requisite modules Overlapping modules
n/a n/a n/a
1) Content Description
Provide a description of the module, as it will appear in the Module Directory and on the Student Information
System (approx. 70-80 words).
This course introduces contemporary theories and the empirical literature of the economics of public policy. The course will
highlight topics on theories of public goods, public good provision, optimal taxation and redistributive taxation, inequality in
incomes and wealth, the global growth and wealth distribution. A large part of the modern literature is empirical, and the course
will address the empirical methods which are popularly used in this literature. It will also identify the problems facing public
policy delivery and what solutions and strategies are discussed in the literature to address these problems.
2) Module Aims
Specify the aims of the module, i.e. the broad educational purposes for offering this module.
This module aims to provide students with a strong foundation-level understanding of the recent debates in public economics,
theory and policy which is relevant for both developed and developing country contexts. The students will learn how to read
papers in public economics and think about public policies in the context of theories of public economics. In addressing the
debates in the literature, the students will be introduced to important theoretical and empirical issues that are discussed in the
literature. The students should be able to read and interpret the literature in this field and apply for policy purposes in their
future careers.