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

  • David Rivera Gonzalez

    Bordeaux School of Economics, UNU-WIDER

    Contribution floors, Informality and Inequality in Latin America

    • Development Economics
    • Brown Bag Seminar

  • Atte Kaljonen

    Aalto University

    Who Benefits from Private Healthcare Subsidies?

    • 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

    Divide and Confer: Aggregating Information without Verification

    • 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

    Waiting lists and Prices: Public Housing Allocation and Private Market Spillovers

    • 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

  • Gary Bolton

    University of Texas at Dallas

    Keeping your story straight: Query and credible bargaining (with Junya Zhou and Zhongheng Qiao)

    • Behavioral Economics
    • 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

  • Ellen Sahlström

    Aalto University

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

    • Labor & Public Economics
    • PhD 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • Christian Brownlees

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

    • Econometrics

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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