General provisions

The syllabus is adopted by the Board of Department of Economics 2002-05-23 and revised 2003-11-06.

Entry requirements

Economics: Basic Course A, Intermediate Course B, Advanced Course C including a course in Microeconomics

Statistics: Basic Course A

Aims

The purpose of this course is to provide insights into how economists approach social problems such as crime and poverty. Some questions raised during the course are: What is the state of inequality and poverty in Sweden? What are the determinants of crime? How should we design policies to reduce, e.g., crime and poverty? How effective are education policies in raising achievement in general and in helping the disadvantaged in particular? Are family policies helpful in reducing gender inequality?

Content

The course will cover a number of selected topics. These include:

- Inequality and poverty in Sweden

- Education policies and equality

- The economics of crime

- The economics of immigration

- Welfare policies to help the disadvantaged

- The economics of the family and family policies

Within each topic we review the important theoretical and empirical work on the subject, the Swedish facts, and some comparative stylized facts.

Instruction

The course material will be presented in lectures. We strongly recommend that students attend all lectures since some of the course material may be a fairly difficult reading even at the advanced level.

Assessment

The course will be examined by a take-home exam. There will be three grades: pass with distinction (VG), pass (G), and fail (U).