Public Economics

CFU: 6

Year II

Instructor: Lapo Filistrucchi

The course will cover some important topics in the field of modern public economics. In particular, the course will deal with: a) the so-called Political Economy, i.e. the study of the interaction between institutions, political organizations and the working of the economic system; b) the Economics of media markets, i.e. the study of how media markets function; c) the so-called Political Economy of the Media, i.e. how media markets affect the political process (and hence economic policies) and vice versa; d) the Regulation of Media Markets. To explore the functioning of media markets the basics of standard oligopolistic models of product differentiation will need to be recalled. Depending on the number of students taking the course, some students may be allowed to opt for assessment on a class presentation in addition to the final written exam. In that case, the class presentation and the written exam will count each for 50% of the grade.  A precise reading list will be available on http://e-l.unifi.it/ at the beginning of the course.  It will contain some chapters from:

Belleflamme e Peitz, 2010, Industrial Organization: Markets and Structure, CUP.Feldstein M. and A.J. Auerbach (eds.), 2002, Handbook of Public Economics, Elsevier.

Anderson S., D. Stromberg, and J. Waldfogel (eds.), 2015, Handbook of Media Economics, Elsevier.