Unit WELFARE ECONOMICS
- Course
- Politics, administration, territory
- Study-unit Code
- 10089006
- Curriculum
- Politiche del territorio e sostenibilità
- Teacher
- Mirella Damiani
- Teachers
-
- Mirella Damiani
- Hours
- 21 ore - Mirella Damiani
- CFU
- 9
- Course Regulation
- Coorte 2023
- Offered
- 2023/24
- Learning activities
- Caratterizzante
- Area
- Economico-statistico
- Academic discipline
- SECS-P/01
- Type of study-unit
- Obbligatorio (Required)
- Type of learning activities
- Attività formativa monodisciplinare
- Language of instruction
- Italian
- Contents
- This course addresses the topic of economic welfare and its distribution within and among countries globally. After a brief theoretical introduction to welfare economics, the course provides the tools to analyze economic well-being from an empirical perspective through the use of data. Space in the course is also devoted to the analysis of poverty with a focus on child and female poverty. The second part will be devoted to the study of public policies aimed at reducing poverty and inequality and methods of evaluating these policies. The last part will be devoted to the role of human capital, and in particular public investment in education as a key variable in reducing inequality in the distribution of wealth and in combating poverty.
- Reference texts
- A list of scientific articles to be analyzed and studied during the course will be offered in the Unistudium platform.
- Educational objectives
- (i) Conceptualization of economic well-being and its possible measurement.
(ii) Knowledge of data and methods for measuring economic welfare, poverty and inequality.
(iii) Knowledge of welfare state regimes and policies aimed at reducing inequality and encouraging social mobility.
(iv) The course offers the main tools for understanding and make a critical analysis
of academic articles and institutional reports on development, poverty and
inequality.
(v) Tools to conduct analyses of welfare, poverty and inequality from survey data.
(vi) Knowledge of the role of human capital as a variable of socially sustainable economic development. - Prerequisites
- Basics notions of microeconomics, mathematics and statistics.
- Teaching methods
- Topics will be developed mainly with
lectures. There will also be lectures organized as
"flipped classroom": in this case, students will have to read some
academic articles and discuss them in class. Students will work together with the lecturer on a short research paper on the topics covered in the course. - Learning verification modality
- Submission of a paper on a topic agreed with the lecturer (1/3 of the final grade). Presentation of a paper among those proposed in the reading list (1/3). Submission of work-in-progress on the final paper (1/3).
- Extended program
- 1. Economic well-being: (i) conceptual framework, (ii) measurement and (iii)
data.
2. Inequalities: (i) inequality in the distribution of income and wealth.
(ii) inequality of opportunity, (iii) gender inequality.
3. Poverty: (i) poverty lines, (ii) indices, (iii) multidimensionality.
4. Policies for poverty reduction and
inequality.
5. Policy evaluation methods: experimental and non-experimental methods.
6. Human capital and economic development: (i) educational performance, (ii) human capital and inequality. - Obiettivi Agenda 2030 per lo sviluppo sostenibile
- 1. No poverty
4. Quality education
5. Gender equality
10. Reduced inequalities