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

  • Alina Ozhegova

    Aalto University

    Entry deterrence through restrictive covenants

    • Lunch Seminar

  • Mikko Silliman

    Aalto University

    Multidimensional skills and spatial sorting (with Pablo E. Warnes and Miika Päällysaho)

    • Trade, Regional and Urban Economics
    • Seminar

  • Juanna Schrøter Joensen

    University of Chicago

    Field of Study and Future Fertility (with Adam Altmejd, John Eric Humphries and Gregory F. Veramendi)

    • Economics of Education (Educa)
    • Seminar

  • Thomas Douenne

    University of Amsterdam

    Optimal Climate Policy with Incomplete Markets (with S. Dyrda, A. J. Hummel and M. Pedroni)

    • Environmental Economics
    • Seminar

  • Martinos Therapontos

    Aalto University

    Anastasiia Evdokimova: Information Distortion in Label Design in Over-the-Counter Drug Market

    • Industrial Organization
    • PhD Reading Group

  • Pauline Vorjohann

    University of Exeter

    Reference-dependent choice bracketing

    • Behavioral Economics
    • Seminar

  • Xinrong Zhu

    Imperial College London Business School

    Health at a Discount? Nutritional Quality and Prices of Private Labels vs. Branded Products (with Alina Ozhegova and Gokhan Yildirim)

    • Industrial Organization
    • Seminar

  • Anne Brockmeyer

    World Bank

    Algorithms and Bureaucrats: Evidence from Tax Audit Selection in Senegal (with Pierre Bachas, Alipio Ferreira, Bassirou Sarr)

    • VATT
    • Seminar

  • Sakari Saaritsa

    University of Helsinki

    In Search of ‘Missing Girls’ in Finland: Child Sex Ratios, Sex Ratios at Birth and Determinants of Discrimination, 1880-1930

    • Colloquium

  • Viola Asri

    CMI

    Missing the target: Does increasing the capacity of the local government improve beneficiary selection? (with Kumar Biswas, Sebastian Fehrler, Urs …

    • Development Economics
    • Seminar

  • Matias Giaccobasso

    VATT

    Signaling Effects in Higher Education: Experimental Evidence from France (with Gedeão Locks)

    • Labor & Public Economics
    • Seminar

  • Mikko Vanhala

    University of Helsinki

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

    • Industrial Organization
    • PhD Seminar

  • Andreas Asseyer

    Freie Universität Berlin

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

    • Microeconomics
    • Seminar

  • CEPR VIOS SEMINAR

    Daniel Waldinger (NYU)

    Broadcasting of an online seminar: Nonpayment and Eviction in the Rental Housing Market

    • Industrial Organization
    • CEPR VIOS Seminar

  • Ellen Sahlström

    Aalto University

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

    • Labor & Public Economics
    • PhD Seminar

  • Sara Bagagli

    LSE

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

    • Trade, Regional and Urban Economics
    • Seminar

  • Stefano Lombardi

    VATT

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

    • Lunch Seminar

  • Pia Nilsson

    University of Helsinki

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

    • Environmental Economics
    • Seminar

  • Atte Kaljonen

    Aalto University

    Pharmaceuticals and Digital Health: How Data-driven Insights May Reshape the Insulin Market

    • Industrial Organization
    • PhD Reading Group

  • Dirk Czarnitzki

    KU Leuven

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

    • Industrial Organization
    • Seminar

  • Juho Nuutinen & Lauri Sääksvuori

    Hanken School of Business and Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL)

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

    • Behavioral Economics
    • Brown Bag Seminar

  • Luca Braghieri

    Bocconi University

    Behavioral and Information Frictions in News Consumption: Evidence from Social Media

    • Colloquium

  • David Rivera Gonzalez

    Bordeaux School of Economics, UNU-WIDER

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

    • Development Economics
    • Brown Bag Seminar

  • Atte Kaljonen

    Aalto University

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

    • Industrial Organization
    • PhD Seminar

  • David Jaeger

    University of St Andrews

    Robustness? On Evaluating Equivalence Across Specifications

    • Labor & Public Economics
    • Seminar

  • CEPR VIOS SEMINAR

    Jana Gieselmann (University of Edinburgh)

    Broadcasting of an online seminar: (Mis-)Matchmakers

    • Industrial Organization
    • CEPR VIOS Seminar

  • James Best

    Carnegie Mellon University

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

    • Microeconomics
    • Seminar

  • Atte Pudas

    Aalto University

    Having It All? Gender Differences in the Returns and Trade-Offs of Inventor Careers

    • Lunch Seminar

  • Giorgio Pietrobissa

    LSE

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

    • Trade, Regional and Urban Economics
    • Seminar

  • Denvil Duncan

    Indiana University

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

    • Labor & Public Economics
    • Seminar

  • Ludovica Gazze

    University of Warwick

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

    • Environmental Economics
    • Seminar

  • Joakim Wikström

    Aalto University, VATT

    Open Source Software Policy in Industry Equilibrium (with Jeff Gortmaker)

    • Industrial Organization
    • PhD Reading Group

  • Paritosh Junare

    University of Bologna

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

    • Econometrics
    • Seminar

  • Salvatore Piccolo

    University of Bergamo

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

    • Industrial Organization
    • Seminar

  • Ola Andersson

    Uppsala University

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

    • Behavioral Economics
    • Seminar

  • Eric Taylor

    Harvard University

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

    • Colloquium

  • Justine Knebelmann

    Sciences Po

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

    • Development Economics
    • Seminar

  • Davide Cipullo

    Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

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

    • Labor & Public Economics
    • Seminar

  • Martinos Therapontos

    Aalto University

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

    • Industrial Organization
    • PhD Seminar

  • Justus Preusser

    Bocconi University

    The Division of Surplus and the Burden of Proof (joint with Deniz Kattwinkel)

    • Microeconomics
    • Seminar

  • Pau Roldan-Blanco

    Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona

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

    • Macroeconomics
    • Seminar

  • Florian Oswald

    University of Turin

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

    • Trade, Regional and Urban Economics
    • Seminar

  • Gabrielle Fack

    Dauphine University

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

    • Economics of Education (Educa)
    • Seminar

  • Milena Almagro

    Chicago Booth

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

    • Colloquium

  • Greta Morando

    University of Sheffield

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

    • Labor & Public Economics
    • Seminar

  • Hung Le

    Aalto University

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

    • Industrial Organization
    • PhD Seminar

  • Hung Le

    Aalto University

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

    • Industrial Organization
    • PhD Reading Group

  • Martino Banchio

    Bocconi University

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

    • Microeconomics
    • Seminar

  • Christian Brownlees

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

    • Econometrics