Topics

Content: The course focuses on the theoretical foundations of welfare economics. Starting from the two theorems of welfare economics, the course examines the robustness of these results and the range of their validity. Classical examples of market failures and of public interventions are examined and discussed with the help of different sources of empirical evidence. A part of the course will focus on classical and more recent developments in the theory of collective decision making and on the foundations for the justifications of public intervention in the economy