An applied economic analysis of a potential policy change will typically incorporate both positive and normative elements. The positive aspects of such an analysis involve an assessment of the likely impacts of the proposed policy change. The normative aspects of the analysis involve an assessment of the desirability of those impacts. Since a potential policy change might make some individuals better off and other individuals worse off, any assessment of the desirability of such a policy change will require both the measurement of the changes in the welfare of individuals in society that might result from the proposed policy change, and the aggregation of those impacts into some measure of the resulting change in social welfare. This course will consider various approaches to the measurement of changes in individual welfare and the aggregation of those changes into a measure of the change in social welfare. These techniques will then be applied to a number of important topics in applied economics. Such topics might include one or more of shadow pricing, taxation, public utility pricing, cost-effectiveness analysis, and cost-benefit analysis.
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion, students will have the knowledge and skills to:
- demonstrate an understanding of various concepts of social welfare, along with their implications for the evaluation of policy changes and other economic shocks;
- demonstrate an understanding of the various alternative ways to measure welfare changes for individuals, and how to aggregate them over individuals to obtain a measure of the change in the economic efficiency dimension of social welfare;
- calculate and interpret various measures of individual welfare changes, and be able to describe any relationships that might exist between them;
- describe, use, and interpret various criteria for assessing the impact of a policy change or other economic shock on the economic efficiency dimension of social welfare, and be able to describe any relationships that might exist between them;
- use appropriate economic models, partial equilibrium analysis, and general equilibrium analysis, to evaluate the welfare effects of policy changes in a coherent way, and explain the economic intuition for the results;
- use conventional welfare economics tools to describe the relationship between the economic literature on various different applied economics topics;
- assess and separately report the economic efficiency and distributional impacts of a potential policy change;
- discuss how the economic efficiency and distributional impacts of a potential policy change might be combined into a single measure of the impact of the policy change on social welfare, and describe the advantages and disadvantages of doing this.
Indicative Assessment
- Assessment may consist of a final exam, mid-semester exam(s), quizzes, assignments, participation marks, or some combination thereof. See the Class Summary for details. (100) [LO 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
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Workload
130 hours in total over the semester consisting of lectures, tutorials and private study time.
Inherent Requirements
Not applicable
Requisite and Incompatibility
Prescribed Texts
See Class Summary for details.
Fees
Tuition fees are for the academic year indicated at the top of the page.
Commonwealth Support (CSP) Students
If you have been offered a Commonwealth supported place, your fees are set by the Australian Government for each course. At ANU 1 EFTSL is 48 units (normally 8 x 6-unit courses). More information about your student contribution amount for each course at Fees.
- Student Contribution Band:
- 34
- Unit value:
- 6 units
If you are a domestic graduate coursework student with a Domestic Tuition Fee (DTF) place or international student you will be required to pay course tuition fees (see below). Course tuition fees are indexed annually. Further information for domestic and international students about tuition and other fees can be found at Fees.
Where there is a unit range displayed for this course, not all unit options below may be available.
| Units | EFTSL |
|---|---|
| 6.00 | 0.12500 |
Course fees
- Domestic fee paying students
| Year | Fee | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | $5280 | Standard Rate |
| 2025 | $3840 |
Grandfathered Rate*
*continuing students in nominated programs only. See fee website |
- International fee paying students
| Year | Fee |
|---|---|
| 2025 | $6720 |
Offerings, Dates and Class Summary Links
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