Teaching
Graduate Public Economics (ECON 436)
This course aims at giving a broad overview of some of the most important topics in public finance, with a focus on recent research as well as areas that have been underlooked for a while and could be revived. We will start with a general overview of the role of government in the economy, and think about modern methods to compare the welfare impacts of different policy interventions. We will then move to think about how governments finance themselves through taxation, covering issues related to how should tax systems be designed, how individuals and firms respond to taxation and who bears the cost of tax changes, and how tax evasion affects the optimal design of taxes and transfers and how can governments fight tax evasion. We will then think about the structure of governments, explore issues of local public finance, analyze why some policies in many countries are carried out by local governments, and how to design and evaluate place-based interventions. In the second half of the course, we will think more about government spending, exploring mostly issues related to the economics of education. We will also think about problems related to the assessment of public goods and public service provision, such as the difficulty of measuring the performance and quality of public goods. Finally, we will devote time thinking about the personnel economics of the public sector, meaning the role played by the quality of individuals who work as public sector workers and how to attract and retain talent in the public sector.
Economics of State and Local Governments (ECON 337)
State and local governments play an essential role in citizens day-to-day life, as they decide and deliver key public goods and services, such as education, transportation, health and welfare. This course uses applied tools of microeconomics and simple data analysis to acquaint students with various aspects of the subnational government sector, including expenditure, financing, and policy issues. We start by reviewing under what situation is the government provision desirable. We then study how levels of state goods and services are determined, and what are the main sources of revenues through which these expenditures are financed, including taxes and transfers from higher levels of government. Students will also learn the importance of political considerations and the role of state and local politics in influencing local government decisions. The course will end with policy analysis and applications. The main focus is going to be on the United States but we are also going to explore examples and issues faced by local governments around the world.
This is an intensive summer course, the main instructor was John Poe. The course was offered online. I attended the entire course, taught some of the sessions and provided virtual office hours and live assistance in answering questions. I also prepared some of the teaching materials. You can find the syllabus of the course here.