FIN 536

Credit: 2 hours.

Government insurance programs -- including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, unemployment and disability insurance, terrorism insurance, and disaster relief -- currently account for more than half of U.S. federal spending. These programs, which for decades have collectively been growing more quickly than the U.S. economy, represent a significant share of an employer's compensation expenses and significantly impact household budgets. This course will examine how the design of these programs affects economic efficiency, growth, business competitiveness, and social well-being. An important theme of the course will be the role of imperfect information and aggregate or long-term risks of insurance market failures, and conditions under which the government can or cannot remedy these failures.

Prerequisite: MAS BPP Concentration.