Public economics study government policies and interventions and how they affect efficiency and equity. Typical motivations for such interventions are related to the presence of market failures and the need for redistribution: for these reasons, governments can and should be responsible for the provision of public goods, social transfers, taxation and the regulation of markets.
Within the European Union, each member state retains ultimate responsibility for economic policy within the economic and monetary union. This responsibility has to deal with the need a strong coordination of coordination and harmonization between the policies of each country and with the supranational role of several institutions of the European Union. Within such context the country-level government have to deal with several issues related Public Economics as they are still responsible for taxation, provision of public goods and social transfers and intervention in case of market failures. However, given the process of European integration, these aspects of Public Economics must be considered in a different perspective as governments have to make efforts to coordinate and harmonize their policies and to deal with the increasing role of supranational authorities. There is therefore the need to develop and teach the discipline of Public Economics in a perspective that highlights how this issues should be applied in a context of a union of states in general and of the European Union in particular.
As a matter of facts, the Europe 2020 strategy poses strong emphasis on targets such as growth, employment and poverty reduction and the achievement of this aspects necessarily need a sound analysis from a Public Economic perspective. Moreover, Europe 2020 strategy directly addresses the issue of governance and ask for tighter EU surveillance of economic and fiscal policies as well as additional commitments and coordination between Member States participating in the Euro Plus Pact. The Europe 2020 strategy calls then for the need of more coordination of policies as well as to the increasing role of supranational European institution.
While these coordination and harmonization processes pose a challenge they an also bring significant benefits for the whole institutional system: a contribution to improved management of EU programmes and policies; increased transparency and accountability; enhanced cost-effectiveness of public investments.
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