Courses Master

Subject Public Finance

The subject Public Finance deals with all kinds of public activities in market economies. This includes answering the question what tasks the public sector has to achieve and discussing the pros and cons of different instruments which are available to manage the tasks. More specifically the different courses deal with issues such as optimal environmental policy and welfare state provisions, tax and social security policy and their distributional and efficiency implications as well as national and international consequences of public debt.

The analysis of different policy implications is based on formal theoretical models as well as modern quantitative approaches. Students will learn the user cost of capital approach to analyze the consequences of corporate tax reforms on investment decisions or the use of generational accounts to quantify the intergenerational redistribution effects of public debt or pension reforms. Dynamic simulation studies which quantify the distributional and efficiency effects of various policy reforms are also the main research focus of the chair. In order to promote these methods among students, we offer computational economics courses and project seminars which introduce the basic tools and approaches for quantitative analysis and may prepare for a Bachelor, a Master or even a PhD. thesis.

Starting in winter term 2018/19 the subject Public Finance can be selected as a specific topic in the Master of Management program. Public Finance will then consist of two mandatory courses: “Steuerpolitik” and “Theorie der Sozialversicherung”. In addition, two courses can be selected from the following list: “Optimal Tax Theory”, European Public Finance”, “Advanced Computational Economics”, “Policy Evaluation Methods” (Chair Labor, Prof. C. Felfe) and “Internationale Besteuerung” (Chair Taxation, Prof. D. Kiesewetter).