AØKK08437U Seminar: Economics of the welfare state (F)

Volume 2024/2025
Education

MSc programme in Economics

The seminar is primarily for students at the MSc of Economics

Content

The seminar gives students the opportunity to work with various aspects of economics of the welfare state, including policy design and evaluation within major welfare state areas, perspectives on fiscal planning, sustainability, and intergenerational fairness in a welfare state, and comparative/cross-country perspectives as well as political economy perspectives on the welfare state and public spending.

 

Themes might include (but are not limited to):

 

  • Pension systems and policies: e.g. fiscal sustainability and inter- and intragenerational redistribution, retirement and labor supply incentives in the pension system, health and retirement, measures of healthy aging and healthy life expectancy under increasing longevity, design of early retirement schemes, “free-rider” concerns and saving incentives in public pension systems.

 

  • Welfare transfers, e.g. design of welfare transfers, including intensive and extensive margin responses, tagging and screening in transfer design, in-kind transfers.

 

  • Social insurance, e.g. design and effects of disability insurance, unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation insurance, health care, long-term care, welfare state crowd-out effects on informal insurance, e.g. family support.

 

  • Welfare state labor markets, e.g. effects of active labor market policies, approaches to new types of work arrangements (e.g. platform work), measuring the (dis)value of work attributes (e.g. work environment, sexual harassment, work flexibility), the role of unions, e.g. effects on inequality, policies to promote female labor supply, understanding drivers of gender gaps in labor supply, occupational choice, wages, etc., integration of immigrants into the labor market.

 

  • Measuring the costs and benefits of public spending, e.g. schooling, childcare, healthcare, methods for measuring the willingness to pay for non-traded goods.

 

  • Challenges to the welfare state from globalization, e.g. migration responses to taxes and transfers, design of migration policies, insurance/training policies to deal with adjustment/displacement effects of globalization.

 

  • Political economy perspectives on the welfare state, e.g. what determines the size of the welfare state across countries, understanding voters’ perceptions of and attitudes towards public spending and taxes, corruption in welfare state countries, social trust in welfare states, trust in politicians and public institutions, political effects of economic policy.
Learning Outcome

After completing the seminar the student is expected to be able to fulfill the learning outcome specified in the Master curriculum and to be able to:

Knowledge

  • Account for key theories and methods that are relevant for the chosen topic
  • Account for the main findings and gaps in the literature related to the chosen topic/research question
  • Provide a few real-world examples which motivate the chosen topic

 

Skills

  • Formulate a research question and motivate it in relation to existing literature and real-world policy
  • Critically evaluate and discuss own theory, methods, and findings
  • Present a research paper to peers
  • Give constructive feedback to peers

 

Competences

  • Independently plan and carry out a research project

 

Supplemented by an overall intended learning outcome outlined in the programme-specific curriculum

Students must search for literature that is relevant for their chosen topic.

 

References for basic background knowledge include

Public economics textbooks:
Atkinson and Stiglitz, Lectures on Public Economics, 2015, Princeton University Press

Hindriks and Myles, Intermediate Public Economics, 2013, MIT Press
Salanié, The Economics of Taxation, 2011, MIT Press
Jonathan Gruber, Public Finance and Public Policy, 2022, Worth Publishers

Methods:
Angrist and Pischke, Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion, 2009, Princeton University Press

BSc in Economics or similar
At the seminar the student is trained independently to
- identify and clarify a problem,
- seek and select relevant literature,
- write an academic paper,
- present and discuss own paper with the other students at the seminar.

The aim of the presentations is, that the student uses the presentation as an opportunity to practice oral skills and to receive feedback. The presentations are not a part of the exam and will not be assessed.

Mandatory activities in the seminar:
- Kick-off meeting
- Finding literature and defining the project
- Writing process of the seminar paper
- Presentation of own project and paper
- Giving constructive feedback to another student´s paper
- Actively participating in discussions at presentations and other meetings.

There is no weekly teaching/lecturing, and the student cannot expect guidance from the teacher. If the teacher gives a few introduction lectures or gives the opportunity for guidance, this as well as other expectations are clarified at the kickoff meeting.

Process:
It is strongly recommended that you think about and search for a topic before the semester begins, as there are only a few weeks from the kick-off meeting to the submission of the project description/ agreement paper.

The seminar project paper must be uploaded in Absalon before the presentations, as the opponents and the other seminar participants must read and comment on the paper. It is important that you upload a paper that is so finalized as possible since the value of feedback and comments at the presentation is strongly associated with the skill level of the seminar paper.

After the presentations, you can, with a few corrections, improve the seminar paper by including the feedback and comments that emerged during the presentations. It is not intended that you rewrite or begin the writing of the full project after the presentation has taken place.
• Kick-off meeting: 4 February 2025, 10:15am-12pm.
• Deadline for submission of commitment paper/project description: No later than 1 March at 10:00am.
• Individual meetings with feedback on project description: March 14, 8:00am-4:00pm.
• Deadline for uploading a seminar assignment paper in Absalon: No later than one week before the presentations.
• Presentations: In the time period 1 – 23 May 2024. We will agree on the exact dates at the kickoff meeting.
• Submission date: 1 June 2025 at 10:00am, i.e., deadline for uploading the seminar paper to the Digital Exam portal for assessment.
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Project work
  • 186
  • Seminar
  • 20
  • Total
  • 206
Oral
Individual
Collective
Peer feedback (Students give each other feedback)
Credit
7,5 ECTS
Type of assessment
Written assignment
Type of assessment details
A seminar paper in English that meets the formal requirements for written papers stated in the curriculum and at KUNet for seminars.
Aid

Use of AI tools is permitted. You must explain how you have used the tools. When text is solely or mainly generated by an AI tool, the tool used must be quoted as a source.

Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
External censorship
Exam period

Exam information:

The seminar paper must be uploaded in Digital Exam.

Common submission date for all seminars: June 1 at 10:00 for the spring semester.

For enrolled students more information about examination, rules, aids etc. is available at the intranet for  Master (UK) and  Master (DK ).

Re-exam

Reexam information:

The reexam form in seminars is a seminar paper with a synopsis.

Deadline and more information is available at  MSc in Economics - KUnet

More information about reexam etc. is available at  Master(UK) and  Master(DK).

Criteria for exam assesment

Students are assessed on the extent to which they master the learning outcome for the seminar and can make use of the knowledge, skills and competencies listed in the learning outcomes in the Curriculum of the Master programme.

 

To receive the top grade, the student must with no or only a few minor weaknesses be able to demonstrate an excellent performance displaying a high level of command of all aspects of the relevant material.