Public Finance (Finance) A - L
Academic Year 2023/2024 - Teacher: MARINA CAVALIERIExpected Learning Outcomes
Knowledge and understanding: students will acquire in-depth knowledge and understanding of the role that the State plays in modern market economies by means of financial tools and the definition of the game’s rules that all members of the society have to respect as far as their economic behaviour is concerned. The student will develop the understanding of the complex State’s decision-making process with regard to allocation, stabilization and redistribution functions.
Applying knowledge and understanding: students will be able to properly evaluate the problems regarding the State’s presence in an economic system where different subjects, either public or private for-profit or private not-for-profit, interact.
Making judgements: students will acquire the ability to employ the economic approach to formulate their personal opinion, critical and freestanding, on those aspects that concern the State’s presence in a complex economic system, where subjects are expected to act in their own self-interest.
Communication skills: students will be able to communicate, in a clear and unambiguous way, to either experts or non-experts, their opinion concerning the State’s role in the modern economic systems, also through written works, diagrams and graphs, employing the existing information technologies for the presentation, acquisition and exchange of knowledge. Evaluation of the communication skills, in a concise and/or analytic form, will take place formally during the written exam, leaving the possibility to evaluate students’ communication skills also through interactive interventions during the in-class lectures.
Learning skills: students will acquire a high learning capacity that will allow them to be autonomous in the management of their professional updating process concerning the evaluation of the activities that the State has to undertake in an economic system, through both budget management and regulation. This type of knowledge is nowadays of increasing importance, mainly because of the debate on the best way to implement privatization policies.
Course Structure
Required Prerequisites
Attendance of Lessons
Detailed Course Content
Textbook Information
1. Balestrino A., Galli E., Spataro L., (2023) Scienza delle Finanze, UTET, Torino.
or its previous edition:
2. Balestrino A., Galli E., Spataro L., (2019) Scienza delle Finanze, UTET, Torino.
Course Planning
| Subjects | Text References | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction to the study of public intervention in market economies | First part, ch.1 (p 5-24) |
| 2 | Economic tools for the analysis of public intervention | First part, ch 1 (appendix p. 25-34) |
| 3 | Welfare economics and public intervention | First part, ch 1 (p. 5-24) and ch 3 (p.54-60) |
| 4 | Reasons for public intervention (first part) | First part, ch 2 (p. 35-49) |
| 5 | Reasons for public intervention (second part) | First part, ch 2 (p. 35-49) |
| 6 | Public goods (first part) | First part, ch. 1 (p. 71-90) |
| 7 | Public goods (second part) | First part, ch. 1 (p. 71-90) |
| 8 | Collective choices (first part) | Second part, ch. 1 (p. 143-160) |
| 9 | Collective choices (second part) | Second part, ch. 1 (p. 143-160) |
| 10 | Retirement system | Third part, ch. 2 (p. 217-224; 229-234) |
| 11 | The health care system | Third part, ch. 4 (p. 258-265; 274-277) |
| 12 | Social security and programs for the poor | Third part, ch. 5 (p. 279-284; 290-299) |
| 13 | Tax systems: an introduction | Fourth part, ch. 1 (p. 303-322) |
| 14 | Tax efficiency and distortions (first part) | Fourth part, ch. 2 (p. 323-337) |
| 15 | Tax efficiency and distortions (second part) | Fourth part, ch. 2 (p. 338-347) |
| 16 | Personal income taxes (first part) | Fourth part, ch. 3 (p. 348-361) |
| 17 | Personal income taxes (second part) | Fourth part, ch. 3 (p.348-361) |
| 18 | Consumption taxes | Fourth part, ch. 3 (p. 362-370) |
| 19 | The Italian Personal Income Tax | Fourth part, ch. 4 (p. 374-406) |
| 20 | The theories of fiscal federalism | Fifth part, ch. 4 (p. 417-433) |
| 21 | Fiscal federalism: rationale and forms of government | Fifth part, ch. 4 (p. 434-444) |