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? How limiting are the external constraints on public finance? What is the degree of inequality in Finland? Should local communities be supported by the government and if yes, how? How should usage of common goods such as natural resources be regulated?
Public Economics Research Group
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.
Members
Jukka Pirttilä
Chair of the group,
Professor
jukka.pirttila at helsinki.fi
Kwabena Adu-Ababio
Member,
PhD student
kwabena.adu-ababio at helsinki.fi
Marja-Liisa Halko
Member, University Lecturer
Kristiina Huttunen
Member,
Research Professor
Homepage
Arttu Kahelin
Member,
PhD student
arttu.kahelin at aalto.fi
Arttu Kauhanen
Member,
PhD student
arttu.kauhanen at helsinki.fi
Eugen Koev
Member,
PhD student
evgenii.koev at helsinki.fi
Aliisa Koivisto
Member,
PhD student
aliisa.koivisto at helsinki.fi
Kaisa Kotakorpi
Member, Research Professor
Anustup Kundu
Member,
PhD student
anustup.kundu at helsinki.fi
Homepage
Matti Liski
Member,
Professor
matti.liski at aalto.fi
Juuso Mäkinen
Member,
PhD student
juuso.p.makinen at aalto.fi
Topi Miettinen
Member, Professor
Kimmo Palanne
Member,
PhD student
kimmo.palanne at aalto.fi
Tuomas Pekkarinen
Member,
Research Professor
Homepage
Tuukka Saarimaa
Member,
Professor
tuukka.saarimaa at aalto.fi
Homepage
Roope Uusitalo
Member, Professor
Upcoming Seminars
17 Sep 2019
Labor and Public
Divided they Fall. Fragmented Parliaments and Government Stability (with Davide Cipullo and Luca Repetto)
- Felipe Carozzi
- LSE
1 Oct 2019
Labor and Public
Optimal taxation of capital income with heterogeneous rates of return
- Aart Gerritsen
- Erasmus University Rotterdam
15 Oct 2019
Labor and Public
Firm- and individual-level responses to labor immigration
- Cristina Bratu
- Aalto University
29 Oct 2019
Labor and Public
First year of the Finnish Basic Income Experiment
- Jouko Verho
- VATT
12 Nov 2019
Labor and Public
The Crime Ladder: Estimating the Impact of Different Punishments on Defendant Outcomes (with Martti Kaila and Emily Nix)
- Kristiina Huttunen
- VATT and Aalto University
26 Nov 2019
Labor and Public
The Impact of Local Property Taxation on Firm Growth and Location: Evidence from Flanders
- Sander Ramboer
- VATT
10 Dec 2019
Labor and Public
RESCHEDULED TO SPRING 2020
- David Seim
- Stockholm University
12 Dec 2019
Labor and Public
Labor and Public Economics PhD Workshop
- Labor and Public Economics PhD Workshop
10 Dec 2019
Labor and Public
Siblings’ Effects on College and Major Choice: Evidence from Chile, Croatia and Sweden
- Andrés Barrios Fernandez
- VATT
