Course description: This is the first of two courses in the graduate public economics sequence at Harvard. This one-semester course covers basic issues in the optimal design of tax and social insurance policies, with emphasis on combining theoretical models with empirical evidence. Topics include efficiency costs and incidence of taxation, income taxation, transfer and welfare programs, public goods and externalities, optimal social insurance (excluding social security), and welfare analysis in behavioral models.
It was taught by Raj Chetty when he was at Harvard. He now teaches at Stanford.
Public Economics (available above or via this playlist on YouTube) will be added to our collection of Free Economics Courses, a subset of our collection, 1,700 Free Online Courses from Top Universities.
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