Introduction to Labour Economics

Recommended Prerequisites

   English language and Microeconomics I and II (1st cycle).

Teaching Methods

 The course underlines the main issues at stake, both in an intuitive and formal way. Students have access to handouts covering the key aspects of the discussion and are supposed to actively participate in structured class discussion. The middle term test and the final exam test both the understanding of concepts and formal derivations.  Students will also have to write a 5-page essay on a topic at their choice. The goal is to allow the student to think autonomously about some particular topic, while showing proficiency in the use of the economics language.

Learning Outcomes

The course aims to provide the student with a solid introduction to labor economics, especially with respect to the employment relationship and investment in human capital. The objectives are to obtain an appreciation of the theory and reach of labor economics; to understand how labor markets can be analyzed from different economic perspectives; to obtain an understanding of how the experimental method of inquiry can be applied to analyze issues in labor and employment relations; to get some acquaintance with the key institutions of the labor market as well as some appreciation of the diversity of employment relations.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

 The course covers four topics: 1. The demand for labor; 2. The economics of the employment relationship; 3. Labor and industrial relations in Europe; 4. Returns to education and training. These topics are extracted from a set of selected bibliographical sources that are made available at the beginning of the course.

Selected subtopics: labor demand (with one, two, and n factors of production); the demand for hours; employment law (firing at will; employment contracts; efficient contracts); models of wage determination (firms and workers as price takers, the monopoly union model, and the bargaining model); labor market institutions and labor market outcomes (do labor institutions matter? The quality of industrial relations); the earnings equation (the simple model, the omitted variable issue, the search for exogenous variation).   

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Periodic or by final exam as given in the course information: 100.0%