2018: The Economics of the Welfare State ( forår 2010 - 10 ECTS )
Rammer for udbud
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Uddannelsessprog:
engelsk
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Niveau:
COURSE LEVEL: Optional MSc level course
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Semester/kvarter:
SEMESTER FOR WHICH THE COURSE DESCRIPTION APPLIES: Spring 2010
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Timer per uge:
NUMBER OF HOURS PER WEEK: 4 lectures per week
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Deltagerbegrænsning:
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Undervisningssted:
Århus
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Hovedområde:
Det Samfundsvidenskabelige Fakultet
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Udbud ID:
17486
Formål
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
The aim is that the student through this course becomes able to
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analyze the difference between welfare regimes, and to explain the various roles welfare policies have.
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identify the mechanisms through which welfare policies may provide insurance, and how this affects economic decision making.
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analyze the extent to which welfare policies arise from various forms of market failures, and being able to argue whether specific policies can address these imperfections.
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analyze how issues of distribution, insurance and incentive affect the policy design in various areas, and be able to identify the main effects on efficiency and equity.
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analyse and evaluate how political institutions and decision processes can affect the design of welfare policies, and evaluate the implications hereof.
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identify some of the main mechanisms affecting society, and explain how they affect the need and scope for welfare policies.
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reflect on the importance of assumptions and model structures for analytical results, and to evaluate how this affects the generality and applicability of the results.
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apply the analytical tools in an independent analysis of a specific problem within the topics covered.
Indhold
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
A main characteristic of the welfare state is that certain services (education, health care etc.) and income transfers (unemployment benefits, pensions etc.) are provided depending on the individual circumstances and needs. The rights are individual, while the financing is collective via various forms of taxation. These arrangements imply redistribution (across individuals and age groups), but any ex post redistribution (from high income to low income, or from the healthy to the sick) will ex ante serve an insurance function. Therefore, the welfare state can be described as an implicit insurance contract involving risk diversification across the whole population. Also, taxation involves risk sharing arrangements. Taking risk and insurance seriously imply new perspectives on the economics of the welfare state. The traditional literature has focused on the trade-off between efficiency and equity with particular emphasis of the distortionary effects of redistributional policies. While this is an important trade-off, the modern literature has shown that the issues are much more complex due to the interaction between insurance and incentives. This course provides an introduction to this more recent literature and relates it to the ongoing debate about the welfare state and its challenges.
COURSE SUBJECT AREAS:
Topics:
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I. Introduction: Welfare regimes
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II. Economics of the welfare state
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Redistribution, risk and incentives (taxation, education, unemployment insurance etc.)
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Private and social insurance
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III. Challenges to the welfare state
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Demographics
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The wealth dilemma
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Norms and solidarity
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Globalization
Faglige forudsætninger
Underviser
LECTURER:
Torben M. Andersen
Undervisnings- og arbejdsform
TEACHING METHOD:
Lectures
TEACHING LANGUAGE:
English
Litteratur
LITERATURE:
Andersen, T.M., Lecture notes on the economics of the welfare state (approx 350 pages) plus additional material to be announced at the start of the course
Bedømmelse
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Skriftlig, bedømt efter 7-skala med intern censur
5 xxxxx
FORM OF ASSESSMENT:
4 hour written exam
EXAMINATION AIDS ALLOWED:
All - except any means of electronic communication including PCs.
