Master's Degree Programme in Public Choice, 120 cr

Learning Objectives

Combining economics with public policy, the program provides students with a large set of skills in public policy analysis:

· The program provides analytical tools from economics (microeconomics, welfare economics, public economics, econometric analysis, cost-benefit-risk analysis) which are useful for evaluating public policies in terms of their absolute and comparative efficacy in meeting social objectives and in terms of identifying and addressing potential cases of market failure. Other key issues covered include policy making in a world of scarcity and potential effects of regulation, taxes and other legislative tools.

· Research tools developed in the program (mathematics, statistics, econometrics, spatial econometrics) allow students to identify, collect and test appropriate data to understand the effects of policies and programs. The econometrics courses are designed to make students both intelligent consumers and producers of statistical evidence and analysis.

· The program also recognizes that, while, ideally, policy is designed to incentivize or deter certain behavior, the actors involved may react in ways different from those anticipated. Therefore the study of policy analysis must also include behavioral/experimental economics.

· Understanding both advantages of and barriers to social and political cooperation is essential in predicting needs for and success of policies (theory of collective action, game theory, and politics).

· The program also provides courses (healthcare economics, crime and criminal policy, etc.) that give the students practical applications for the tools learned in other courses.

This program teaches students to use the tools of economics to address broader social science problems. The analysis of public policy requires an approach that combines insights and techniques from economics and political science. This program extends economic analysis beyond the traditional focus on market interactions to examine intended and unintended consequences of policies and to explore how and when individual self-interest among politicians, interest groups, voters, etc. can either help or hinder the public interest. Public policy analysis involves understanding: institutional design, policy evaluation and implementation and decision-making. The methods used include microeconomics, game theory, experimental economics, spatial econometrics, social choice theory and econometrics.