PUBPOL 6971

Topics in Public Finance and Behavioral Economics

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2024-2025.

In this course, we will cover topics in public finance and explore how behavioral economics has influenced our thinking and analysis of major questions in the field. We will focus on reading and discussing important papers, as well as building an experimental toolkit. The goal of the course is to identify open questions at the research frontier and to develop new research ideas.

When Offered Fall.

Prerequisites/Corequisites Prerequisite: students must pass the micro and econometrics qualifying exams in economics, OR be a PUBPOL/AEM Ph.D. student in good academic standing.

• Identify key concepts in public finance and behavioral economics recalling the main theories, models, and empirical findings discussed in class and readings.
• Critically evaluate the contribution of specific papers to the literature, including assessing the validity of their methodologies and the robustness of their findings.
• Develop original research questions that address gaps or open questions in the field of public finance or behavioral economics.

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