Undergraduate, Postgraduate - UnitECC4810 - Public economics

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2014 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

print version

6 points, SCA Band 3, 0.125 EFTSL

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Level	Undergraduate, Postgraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Business and Economics
Organisational Unit	Department of Economics
Offered	Clayton Second semester 2014 (Day)
Coordinator(s)	Associate Professor Vai-Lam Mui

Synopsis

Models of decision making in the collective setting, utilising a number of tools, some of which will be familiar microeconomic ones. Economic approaches to collective decision environments, including 'new welfare economics', the 'Chicago' and 'Virginia' schools. Whenever possible, Australian policies will be examined in light of theory.

Outcomes

The learning goals associated with this unit are to:

understand the issues and analysis of collective decisions
become more discriminating observers of the political and policy environment
be able to review market failures and consider the potential for solving these failures in the collective or political setting
be able to examine problems of free-riding, incentives to vote, interest group influence, bureaucratic behaviour and constitutional frameworks
understand the economist's role in the process of formulating public policy.