96409 - GLOBAL CHALLENGES IN PUBLIC FINANCE AND HEALTH POLICIES

Learning outcomes

The emerging global financial, economic and health challenges highlight the unique role of government in serving the public interest. The objective of this course is to provide students with the tools needed for an in-depth understanding and critical assessment of a variety of global issues in health economics and public finance. Selected topics include the demand and supply of health care services; market failures and government intervention; tax and social insurance mechanism; inequalities and iniquities in health and health care.

Course contents

This course aims at providing students with critical elements to assess some of the issues that give rise to global challenges in public finance and health policies. At the end of the course, students will have an advanced knowledge on the following areas of research:

Consumer information and agency

Provider payment and incentives

The economics of infectious disease

The pharmaceutical industry

Inequalities and iniquities in health and health care

Health systems in industrialized, low- and middle-income countries

Global public finance

Readings/Bibliography

Lectures will be in English. The reference books are:

Folland, S., Goodman, A.C., and Stano, M., (2017), The Economics of Health and Health Care, Pearson Education (US), International eighth edition.

Glied, S., & Smith, P. C. (Eds.). (2013). The Oxford handbook of health economics. Oxford University Press.

Additional readings include:

Keen, M., & Konrad, K. A. (2013). "The theory of international tax competition and coordination", in A. Auerbach, R. Chetty, M. Feldstein, and E. Saez (eds.), Handbook of public economics, Volume 5, North-Holland, Amsterdam.

Atkinson, A. B. (2014). "Global public economics", in A. B. Atkinson (eds.), Public economics in an age of austerity, Routledge, London.

A detailed syllabus will be available at the beginning of the classes. Course program is the same independently of class attendance.

Teaching methods

Lectures with slides presentation.

During the classes students will be asked to give presentations of assigned papers.

Assessment methods

Assessment will be based on the presentation of an assigned reading and a final written exam.

The final exam counts for two thirds of your overall grade. For those students who opt out of the reading's presentation, the final grade will be based entirely on a more difficult version of the final written exam.

The maximum possible score is 30 cum laude, and the grade is graduated as follows:

<18 failed
18-23 sufficient
24-27 good
28-30 very good
30 e lode excellent

Details will be provided at the beginning of the course.

Teaching tools

Slide presentations.

Frontal lectures.

Office hours

See the website of Rossella Verzulli