Dr Kitty Stewart OLD 2.36 and Prof David Piachaud OLD 2.64

This course is available on the BSc in Social Policy, BSc in Social Policy and Criminology and BSc in Social Policy with Government. This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit and to General Course students.

This course has two parts. The first part uses economic principles to help students to understand the characteristics of different social policy areas and how the markets and the government may fail. The second part tries to analyse the causes of and possible solutions to poverty and inequality.

The key subjects will include: the nature of economic problems; basic economic theories; economics of healthcare, social care, housing, education and environment; market and government failures; private insurance and social insurance; quasi-markets; technology and productivity change; the distribution of income; concepts of poverty and inequality; the determination of wages; the role of trade unions; minimum wage legislation; low pay and poverty; unemployment and government economic management; education and human capital theory; policies of income redistribution.

10 hours of lectures and 9 hours of classes in the MT. 10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the LT. 1 hour of classes in the ST.

Essays and presentations will be required.

J Le Grand, C Propper & R Robinson, The Economics of Social Problems, Fourth Edition, Palgrave, 2008; A B Atkinson, N Barr, Economics of the Welfare State, Fifth Edition, OUP 2012; J Le Grand, The Other Invisible Hand Delivering Public Services through Choice and Competition, Princeton, 2007; H Glennerster, Understanding the Finance of Welfare. The Policy Press, 2009; J Hills, Inequality and the State, OUP, 2004.

Exam (100%, duration: 3 hours) in the main exam period.