Foundations of Public Policy (Public Policy 101)
Foundations of Public Policy (Public Policy 101)
This course provides an introduction to public policy in the United States. In this course, we will study what is public policy and what it is used for, how policies are made, who are involved in the policymaking process, how policies are implemented and their outcomes, why some policies appear to succeed while others appear to fail.
Upon completion of the course, students should be able to understand the basic theories and concepts of public policy, and apply your knowledge to critically think about and clearly articulate policy issues. One important learning objective is to improve their ability to write and communicate effectively, concisely and with clarity.
This course provides an introduction to the fundamentals of public policy and methods of performing policy analysis, with a particular focus on the economic principles of policy analysis. We consider a number of questions: What is the justification for government intervention and public policy? What are the instruments of public policy? How should government and public agencies allocate resources? How can we measure social costs and benefits and assess alternative policy options? How can we evaluate the effectiveness of public policy and programs?
The course aims to provide students with the necessary tools to analyze problems and solutions and to be a good consumer of policy research. We also seek to improve your skills in information gathering, analytical thinking and writing, and problem-solving.
Key Learning Objectives
At the completion of the course, students should be able to:
· Explain what public policy and goals of public policy are;
· Understand and explain what market failures are and economic justifications for public policy;
· Analyze policy instruments that are employed by the government such as taxation and subsidy;
· Understand and perform cost-benefit analysis;
· Understand and employ the basic approaches to evaluating public policy and programs;
· Write policy memos to communicate the outputs of policy analysis and research.
This course focuses on the interplay between public policy and technological change. We will study what is technological innovation, what is the rationale for government involvement in science and technology policy, the various policy instruments (for example, patent protection, publicly funded R&D, regulations) that affect the development of new technologies, knowledge transfers and diffusion of innovations. It is also important to recognize that much of the technological innovation is taking place beyond the purview of government. As significant technological advances are being made across a range of fields (such as information communications, artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics), they pose new challenges to our society including risks to public safety and national security, labor force dislocations, and exacerbated inequalities and all of these require government actions and interventions. Throughout this course we will draw cases and examples from various sectors/fields including energy and environment, information and cybersecurity, biotechnology to better understand the interplay between policy and technology.