Introduction: role of government in a market economy; Basic tools: indirect utility function, compensating and equivalent variation, consumer surplus; Public good: two welfare theorems in presence of exchange and production economy, public good provision a la Samuelson, club goods and local public goods, private provision of public goods, free riding, Vickrey-Clarke-Groves mechanism; Principles of taxation, basic concepts, optimal income and commodity taxation; Political economy: median voter, probabilistic voting and citizen candidate models; Fiscal federalism, economic rationale of sub-national entities, grants and transfers, tax competition and harmonization, the recent GST debate; Fiscal deficit and debt dynamics, intergenerational issues.
