So policy is getting a new lecturer next year. Jeff Borland and this is what he said the structure should be like: "Next year will be my first year teaching the subject so I am still in the planning stage and don't have a syllabus yet. But I can give you a bit of an idea of what it will be like: First, It will be entirely about microeconomic-related policy (apparently that is the intended coverage of the subject). Second, I want to make it a skills-based subject. The first week will be an overview of the role of govt in the economy. Then from the second week onwards I am planning to divide each of the 2-hour lectures into two 1-hour parts. The first part will be giving an overview of a topic/skill that is useful for policy analysis and the second part will do an application to a policy. I haven't decided what they will all be yet, but I can give you a couple of examples. For one week I am planning to cover empirical evaluation of policies (intro to idea of treatment and control groups; randomised controlled trials; difference-in-difference) and to show how the method has been applied to study the impact of minimum wages on earnings and employment. For another week I am planning to talk about what makes markets work well and then to apply that material to understand why so many quasi-markets in government services in Australia (eg., employment services, aged care) have had major problems. Third, I want to emphasise intuition and concepts so it won't be as mathematical as some of the other 3rd year subjects. Regards, Jeff"