Public Economics

In the first part of the course, the basic ideas and magnitudes of state intervention in the economy and budget tools are discussed. In the next part, an introduction to the Theory of Taxation is presented, where the incidence of taxes and their effects on behavior are analyzed. The excess tax created by choice of a good over other goods, the choice between leisure and consumption, and the choice in an intertemporal consumption model are studied in detail. Basic ideas about empirical estimates of elasticities are also raised. The following part presents some fundamental ideas about equity, well-being, and redistribution. The fundamental ideas about optimal taxation, and the basic aspects of the central tax figures are discussed next. It ends with a discussion of the main issues of fiscal decentralization and the economic policy of taxation.