For students:

Public Economics

  • What is the right level of tax progression?
  • What are the consequences of basic income?
  • How should universities be financed?
  • What is the right way to support poor people?
  • How should the pension system be financed?
Data visualization

Public economics provides a framework for thinking about the planner’s or the government’s intervention to the market. To this end, microeconomic models are used to assess how various market failures, inefficiencies, and inequalities can be corrected.

Much of modern public economics is related to inequality. The market economy does not necessarily produce a socially desirable distribution of income, and government intervention is again needed. Public economics research can inform policy discussion about the impacts of inequalities, how effective public policies are in reducing them, and how policymakers can address possible tradeoffs between economic efficiency and distributional equity.

At the core of public economic analysis are various policy measures, including taxes, provision of public goods, and regulatory actions. Research in contemporary public economics is increasingly empirical.  Impact evaluation methods and sufficient statistics approaches are used to attempt to credibly estimate the impact of policy instruments and reforms on taxpayer and individual behavior.

For Master's students interested in these topics, here is a list of recommended courses.

University of Helsinki and VATT Institute for Economic Research are part of the Finnish Centre of Excellence in Tax Systems Research, led by Professor Kaisa Kotakorpi of Tampere University.

Chair

  • Jukka Pirttilä

    Deputy Academic Director of Helsinki GSE, Professor @ University of Helsinki

Members

PhD Students

  • Greta Morando

    University of Sheffield

    Why Fathers Don’t Take Parental Leave: Understanding and Shaping Beliefs About the Returns to Paternal Leave (with Laura Fumagalli and Sonkurt Senn)

    • Labor & Public Economics
    • Seminar

  • Luisa Wallossek

    University of Oslo

    Opt-in or Opt-out? The Power of Defaults in Pension Enrollment Choices (with Tabea Bucher-Koenen and Joachim Winter)

    • VATT
    • Seminar

  • Omar Bamieh

    Universidad Andrés Bello, Chile

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Labor & Public Economics
    • Seminar

  • David Rivera Gonzalez

    Bordeaux School of Economics

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • VATT
    • Seminar

  • Jakob Egholt Søgaard

    Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI)

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Labor & Public Economics
    • Seminar

  • Jos van Ommeren

    VU Amsterdam

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Trade, Regional and Urban Economics
    • Seminar

  • Pia Nilsson

    University of Helsinki

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Environmental Economics
    • Seminar

  • Leander Heldring

    Northwestern University

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Colloquium

  • Eleonora Guarnieri

    University of Bristol

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Development Economics
    • Seminar

  • Andrew Shephard

    KU Leuven

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Labor & Public Economics
    • Seminar

  • Philip Jung

    TU Dortmund

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Macroeconomics
    • Seminar

  • Sandro Shelegia

    Universitat Pompeu Fabra

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Seminar

  • Marten Ritterrath

    VATT

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Seminar

  • Christian Brownlees

    LUISS Guido Carli

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Econometrics

  • Zhengqing Gui

    National University of Singapore

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Microeconomics
    • Seminar

  • Gisle Natvik

    BI Norwegian Business School

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Colloquium

  • Jakob Miethe

    LMU Munich

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Labor & Public Economics
    • Seminar

  • Léa Bignon

    KU Leuven

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Industrial Organization
    • Seminar

  • Åsa Löfgren

    Gothenburg University

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Environmental Economics
    • Seminar

  • Jenifer Ruiz Valenzuela

    University of Barcelona

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Economics of Education (Educa)
    • Seminar

  • Mathias Reynaert

    TSE

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Colloquium

  • Basile Grassi

    Bocconi University

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Colloquium

  • Veronica Salazar-Restrepo

    IIES, Stockholm University

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Seminar

  • Elias Tsakas & Evangelos Mourelatos

    Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE) & University of Oulu

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Behavioral Economics
    • Seminar

  • Yann Delaprez

    University of Chicago

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Industrial Organization
    • Seminar

  • Albert Solé Ollé

    University of Barcelona

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Trade, Regional and Urban Economics
    • Seminar

  • Hugo Reichardt

    Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional (CREi)

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Labor & Public Economics
    • Seminar

  • Tuomas Kaariaho

    University of Helsinki

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Environmental Economics
    • Seminar

  • Pia Ennuchat

    University of Mannheim

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Microeconomics
    • Seminar

  • Joyee Deb

    New York University

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Colloquium

  • Wouter Leenders

    Sciences Po

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Labor & Public Economics
    • Seminar

  • Rodrigo Carril

    Pompeu Fabra University

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Industrial Organization
    • Seminar

  • Piia Remes

    VATT

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Environmental Economics
    • Seminar

  • Linde Kattenberg

    Aarhus University

    The content of this event has not been announced yet. Please check back later.

    • Environmental Economics
    • Seminar