Economics of Innovation

The course aims at providing both knowledge of theories, models and tools of economic policy and ability to apply them to national and international, corporate and institutional issues. These skills more specifically will allow to work in institutions and in economic research centers, in particular for the design, application, evaluation and control of economic choices; in companies, specifically to define strategies and evaluate their results in the micro and macroeconomic institutional context; in the professions, for knowing better the economic environment in which they operate and make accurate forecasts. By making use of the Dublin descriptors, the following detailed objectives can be identified: A) At the end of the course, the student must be able to understand the micro and macroeconomic issues related to the economic policy debates, such as the internalization of externalities, the sustainability of the public debt or the management of monetary policy. B) The student must be able to identify the pros and cons of the various economic policy solutions proposed to face the microeconomic and macroeconomic failures of the market. The assessment of the student should not only be theoretical but also quantitative, at least at a simplified level. C) The student must be able to propose in an autonomous and critical way solutions to various problems of economic policy; in particular she must be able to identify which type of market failure the problem belongs to; suggest possible solutions and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, by making use also of cost-benefit analysis if appropriate. D) The student must be able to communicate at different levels, possibly through a graphic or mathematical formalization, the logic of economic policy and the mechanisms of transmission of public action. E) The student must be able to master the key concepts, techniques and basic models of economic policy in order to use them (qualitatively and quantitatively) at a more advanced level also to integrate them with concepts and tools of such disciplines as political economy, statistics and public finance.