Ms Mara Airoldi NAB5.18 and Prof Richard Bevan

This course is compulsory on the MSc in Public Management and Governance. This course is available on the MPhil/ PhD in Employment Relations & Org Behaviour and MPhil/ PhD in Management. This course is not available as an outside option.

The objective of this course to enable students to think like a policy analyst by learning how analysis needs to take account of, and be designed to relate to, the processes through which policies are made. For such analysis, the concepts of micro-economics are necessary but not sufficient. Good ways of learning the strengths and weaknesses of micro-economics is through studying major intellectual arguments of the 20th Century: e.g., the nature of science, critiques of positivism; the nature of power; efficiency, equity and justice; and market and government failure. The practical relevance of these arguments is demonstrated by examination of case studies of failures and successes in policy analysis. The first term focuses on concepts and cases relevant to understanding economic appraisal and evaluation (including cost-benefit analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis and multi-criteria decision analysis); the second term focuses on reform of systems of delivering public services focusing on health care and education (including contracting out, quasi-markets and performance measurement).

15 hours of lectures and 15 hours of seminars in the MT. 15 hours of lectures and 15 hours of seminars in the LT.

For the 10 weeks of MT, and the first eight weeks of LT, there are a lecture and a seminar each week, each is for 1.5 hours. In the last two weeks of LT students present projects.

One individual essay of 2,500 words on economic evaluation to be produced early in Lent Term as preparation for the summative assessment.

The course text is MC Munger, Analyzing Policy, Norton, 2000. Background is provided by D M Hausman & M S McPherson, Economic Analysis and Moral Philosophy, Cambridge University Press; W Parsons, Public Policy: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Policy Analysis, Edward Elgar Publishing 1997; H Varian, Intermediate Microeconomics, Sixth edition, Norton & Company, 2003; M Parkin, M Powell, K Matthews, Economics (3rd Edition). Addison-Wesley, 1997. In addition students will be introduced to extracts from classic works of leading scholars including: T S Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (2nd edn), University of Chicago Press, 1972; J Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Oxford University Press, 1971; S Lukes, Power: A Radical View, 2nd edn, Palgrave, 2005; T C Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, Oxford University Press, 1973; K Binmore, Game Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007; D W Hands, Reflection without Rules, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001; O E Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies, The Free Press, 1975; O E Williamson, The Economic Institutions of Capitalism: Firms, Markets and Relational Contracting, New York, The Free Press, 1985; J Le Grand, The Other Invisible Hand: Delivering Public Services Through Choice and Competition, Princeton University Press, 2007; R H Thaler and C R Sunstein, Nudge, Penguin, 2009. Students will examine extracts from official reports.

Essay (25%, 2500 words), project (25%) and presentation (5%) in the LT.
Essay (40%, 5000 words) in the ST.
Presentation (5%) in the MT.

Actual details

Individual presentations in weekly seminars: 5% in the MT and 5%  in LT.

Group projects: individual essay (25%, 2500 words), group presentation (25%) in the LT.

Individual essay on system reform (40%, 5000 words) in the ST.