Public finance is the management of a country’s revenue, expenditures, and debt load through various government and quasi-government institutions. This guide provides an overview of how public finances are managed, what the various components of public finance are, and how to easily understand what all the numbers mean. A country’s financial position can be evaluated in much the same way as a business’ financial statements.
Municipal finance answers the question why “getting municipal finance right” is key to achieving a nation’s broader goals of economic growth, macroeconomic stabilisation, and, for some countries,national cohesion among diverse populations. The economic content of the "municipal finances" concept is determined by the economic nature of local public goods for their production and delivery to citizens, at whom the activities of local self-government bodies are aimed.
Course summarizes the key considerations of alternative governance structures, as well as fundamental questions related to what role municipalities should play in a country’s revenue and expenditure systems.
The purpose of this course is to provide students with a heightened appreciation of the role of a financial manager within a firm and to understand the tools and the nature of the decisions that financial managers must make. Paramount to the topic is an understanding of what constitutes a "good” manager. A traditional finance characterization of a good manager is one who adopts the most firm-value-maximizing projects in the interests of maximizing current shareholders' wealth (e.g. Brealey, Myers, and Allen, pp 20-28).This model is sometimes called the shareholder primacy model. An alternative model, frequently termed the stakeholder model, argues that a good manager is one who effectively maximizes the joint utility of all firm-stakeholders.
- Teacher: Dmitriy Sokol (Дмитрий Сокол)
This course provides an introduction to governmental budgeting and finance. Funding for public programs is inseparable from the operation of those programs; in addition, the sources of revenue for public programs often play an instrumental role in design of such government spending. As a result, public managers and their advisors (both inside and outside of government) find themselves in need of the knowledge and skills associated with the key principles of public finance and budgeting. A familiarity with and understanding of such principles is vital to professional success in the arena of public administration and public policy.
This course will survey the broad areas of: (1) public budgeting, (2) governmental expenditure and financial management, and (3) revenue analysis in the public sector.