Teaching code

4S008964

Academic staff

Martina Menon, Federico Perali

Coordinator

Martina Menon

Credits

6

Language

Italian

Scientific Disciplinary Sector (SSD)

SECS-P/02 - ECONOMIC POLICY

Period

Secondo semestre (lauree) dal Feb 20, 2023 al May 31, 2023.

Lessons timetable Moodle Seminars 0

Learning objectives

The course completes the contents, both from a cultural and educational point of view, of the fundamental course of Political Economy that teaches the basic principles of welfare economics and market efficiency analysis from a social point of view. These notions are essential to understanding the impact of economic policies or shocks, such as the 2020 health emergency, on the well-being of citizens and firms’ efficiency, the supply of labor and the demand for consumer goods, and on the economy in general. The acquisition of basic knowledge concerns the typical tools of a laboratory devoted to the analysis of economic policies and to the economic interpretation of large economic data bases such as micro and macro-econometrics tools and mathematical programming tools for the analysis of social accounting matrices and simple equilibrium models connected to them. The skills that this approach based on the learning-by-doing principle (in this case by analysing data and economic policies related to real social problems) intends to develop concern the team work, considering that more students will work on the same or on more projects of interest, leadership (the project manager will be responsible for the quality of the result of the project itself), ability to solve problems also through co-creation processes of solutions based on the dialogue between the stakeholders of the project itself, and the ability to implement the same projects at and with companies or institutions that are stakeholders. These cognitive and non-cognitive skills, also of a transversal type such as communication skills within the group and skills in presenting results, autonomy of critical judgment and learning through practice, are fundamental for the cultural growth of the student and for his professional practice because the student will be able to take advantage of a set of analysis tools and interpretation of economic big data and models acquired in the laboratory that are supposed to be of great utility for the future profession.

Prerequisites and basic notions

Mathematics, micro and macro economics, econometrics and economic policy

Program

The course complements the contents of of Economic Policy, which teaches the basic principles of the economics of well-being and market analysis. These notions are fundamental for understanding the impact of economic policies or shocks, such as the health emergency of 2020, on the well-being of citizens and the efficiency of businesses, the supply of labor and the demand for consumer goods, and on the economy in general. The knowledge concerns the typical tools of an analysis laboratory of economic policies and of the large economic databases on which the analyzes are based: tools of micro and macro-econometrics and mathematical programming for the analysis of social accounting matrices and simple equilibrium models connected to them. The skills that this approach based on the principle of learning-by-doing (in this case analyzing real economic data and policies) intends to develop concern team work, considering that more students will work on the same or more projects of interest, leadership (the project leader will be responsible for the quality of the result of the project itself), for the ability to solve problems also through co-creation processes of solutions based on the dialogue between the stakeholders of the project itself, and the ability to implement the same projects at and with companies or institutions with stakeholders. These cognitive and non-cognitive skills, even of a transversal type such as communication skills within the group and skills in the presentation of results, autonomy of critical judgment and learning through practice, are fundamental for the cultural growth of the student and for his professional practice who will be able to benefit from a set of analysis and interpretation tools of economic big data and models acquired in the laboratory of great use in the world of work.

Bibliography

Didactic methods

Classroom meetings include the use of the blackboard and slide presentations, group discussions and exercises, students will be able to learn techniques of project evaluation and economic policies, collection and statistical and econometric analysis of data , economic interpretation of the results and drafting of a scientific report. Students will be able to deepen the topics covered in class through the material made available on the e-learning site dedicated to teaching and other material reported from time to time by the teacher. Students will work in groups that have been assigned a project. The groups will function as open workshops that allow students to learn from the experiences of other projects in the class. Students will learn by doing as leaders of projects for which they are responsible and will be personally involved in the phase of data collection (if they do not marry a project with data already available) and data analysis. The phase of problem analysis and solution proposals will be very important, possibly co-created with the stakeholders of the problem itself, possibly implementable in reality.

Learning assessment procedures

The exam verifies the level of achievement of the previously indicated training objectives. The exam consists in the completion of a scientific project report and a short presentation.

Evaluation criteria

The elements taken into consideration for the evaluation are: a) originality of the topic and of the analysis; b) scientific rigor of the presentation (use of economic and econometric models, graphs, tables and their interpretation); c) critical ability in the analysis of the topic. Plagiarism compromises the positive evaluation of the thesis.

Criteria for the composition of the final grade

The final grade is made up of 75% from the scientific project and 25% from active participation in the classroom.

Exam language

Italiano