Postgraduate - UnitECC5810 - Public economics

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2015 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.

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6 points, SCA Band 3, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Level	Postgraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Business and Economics
Organisational Unit	Department of Economics
Offered	Clayton Second semester 2015 (Day)
Coordinator(s)	Associate Professor Vai-Lam Mui

Synopsis

Topics in the theory of public goods including optimum conditions analysis; market failure and problems of political decision-making in relation to the supply of pure and impure public goods; separation of equity and efficiency aspects; possible applications to such issues as income redistribution, merit wants, pollution control and multi-level government.

Outcomes

The learning goals associated with this unit are to:

be familiar with the welfare framework, economic concepts and theoretical economic analysis of public goods at an advanced level
be familiar with advanced economic analysis of political decision-making in the public choice literature
have a sophisticated understanding of the implications of public goods analysis for government policy in major areas of public expenditure
have a sophisticated appreciation of the limitations and deficiencies of theoretical and empirical economic analysis in this general area.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 100%

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. Independent study may include associated readings, assessment and preparation for scheduled activities. The unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.

Chief examiner(s)

Associate Professor Vai-Lam Mui

Co-requisites

Students must be enrolled in course code 3194 or 4427 to undertake this unit