14.41 Public Finance and Public Policy

Instructor:
Professor Jonathan Gruber

Catalog description:
Explores the role of government in the economy, applying tools of basic microeconomics to answer important policy questions such as government response to global warming, school choice by K-12 students, Social Security versus private retirement savings accounts, government versus private health insurance, setting income tax rates for individuals and corporations. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments.

Fall 2022

• Syllabus
• Lecture Videos on YouTube
• Textbook (Public Finance and Public Policy) – you can easily find a pdf online for free (an older edition, but that’s ok) if you just look it up on Google

Comments

• The textbook is really good. Many of the lectures reference graphs that are found in the textbook, so if you want to fully understand lecture, you’ll need it. You can get by with just the lectures, but the book provides more details, examples, and applications, so I (ashay) recommend you read it.

Homework

• Problem Set 1 (assignment, solutions)
• Problem Set 2 (assignment, solutions)
• Problem Set 3 (assignment, solutions)
• Problem Set 4 (assignment, solutions)
• Problem Set 5 (assignment, solutions)
• Problem Set 6 (assignment, solutions)

Exams

• 2021 midterm (exam, solutions)
• 2019 midterm (exam, solutions)
• 2017 midterm (exam, solutions)
• 2020 final (exam, solutions)
• 2019 final (exam, solutions)
• 2017 final (exam, solutions)

Recitations

• [coming soon]

Other Resources

• 14.41 Fall 2010 OCW (homework, recitations, solutions, exams)