Public Economics

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This course provides basic knowledge of the functioning and the economic significance of the public sector with an emphasis on international aspects. Some of the topics to be dealt with in the course are: governmental decision-making on the national and international level, role and management of the state in times of globalisation and transnational threats like global warming and international terrorism, important issues pertaining to government expenditure, taxation, and activities (like public goods, international institutions, education, social security, health care), fiscal federalism (with an eye on European integration), and mechanisms of political influence (elections and lobbying). Those issues will be analysed from a normative - welfare economic - as well as from a positive - explanatory - perspective, with emphasis on the relevance and limitation of theory.