The economic role of the State and the size of government: measuring the size of government; The growing role of the state in the 20th century and its explanations.

Market, efficiency and equity: the fundamental theorems of welfare economics; efficiency and the compensation test; efficiency and equity in the design of public policy.

Public goods: voluntary provision of public goods; mechanisms for the provision of public goods; inequality and private provision of public goods.

Voting and social choice: paradoxes of collective decision making; aggregation of preferences, social welfare and Arrow's impossibility theorem.

The economics of the welfare state: insurance market failures; lack of insurance coverage in health; long-term growth in health; pensions, pay-as-you-go vs fully funded systems; the effect of pensions on savings and labor supply; long-term sustainability of pension systems; the welfare state as an insurance device.

Inequality: measures of inequality; the causes and consequences of inequality; intergenerational inequality.

Redistributive taxation and efficiency: the distortionary effect of taxes; income tax: consumption vs income; taxation of wealth; effects of taxation on savings; capital taxation; international tax competition.