| WEEK # | TOPICS | READINGS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Employment, Earnings, and the Labor Market: An Overview | Goldin, C. "Labor Markets in the 20th Century." NBER Historical Working Paper No 8, June 1994. (Also in Cambridge Economic History of the U.S., pp. 1-85.) Borjas. Chapter 1 (including the Appendix) and 5. Ehrenberg and Smith. Chapters 1-2 (including Appendix 1A) and 10. Wooldridge. Appendices A, B, and C, and chapters 1-4. Application: Do Immigrants take Jobs from Natives? Johnson, G. E. "The Labor Market Effects of Immigration." Industrial and Labor Relations Review 33 (April 1980). Card, D. "The Impact of the Mariel Boatlift on the Miami Labor Market." Industrial and Labor Relations Review 43 (January 1990). |
| 2 | Labor Supply and the Decision to Work | Borjas. Chapters 2-3. Ehrenberg and Smith. Chapter 6. Nicholson. Chapters 2-5 (math and micro review). Deaton and MuellBauer. Chapters 1-4 and 11. Application: Labor Supply on the Road and at the Ballpark Farber, H. "Is Tomorrow Another Day? The Labor Supply of New York City Cab Drivers." JPE (February 2005). Oettinger, Gerald S. "An Empirical Analysis of the Daily Labor Supply of Stadium Vendors." Journal of Political Economy 107, no. 2 (April 1999): 360-92. Income Effects Imbens, Rubin, and Sacerdote. "Estimating the Effect of Unearned Income on Labor Supply: Evidence from a Survey of Lottery Players." American Economic Review 91 (2001). |
| 3 | Home Production, Children, Child-care, Fertility | Borjas. Chapter 3. Ehrenberg and Smith. Chapter 7. Gronau, R. "Leisure, Home Production and Work -- The Theory of the Allocation of Time Revisited." Journal of Political Economy 85 (December 1977). Blau, et al. Chapter 4. Application: Children and their Parents' Labor Supply Angrist and W. Evans. "Children and Their Parent's Labor Supply: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Family Size." American Economic Review 88 (June 1998). |
| 4 | The Demand for Labor, Minimum Wages, Monopsony | Borjas. Chapter 4. Ehrenberg and Smith. Chapters 3-4. Nicholson. Chapters 21-22. Applications: Minimum Wages and Labor Supply Shifts Card, D., and A. Krueger. "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania." American Economic Review 84 (September 1994): 772-93. ———. Myth and Measurement: the New Economics of Legal Minimum Wages. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995. Ehrenberg, R., ed. "The New Economics of the Minimum Wage: Review Symposium." Industrial and Labor Relations Review 48 (July 1995). Angrist, J. "Short-Run Demand for Palestinian Labor." Journal of Labor Economics (July 1996). |
| 5 | Human Capital, Education, and Training | Borjas. Chapter 7. Ehrenberg and Smith. Chapter 9. Applications: The Returns to Schooling, Experiences, and Computer Skills Angrist, J., and A. Krueger. "Does Compulsory School Attendance Affect Schooling and Earnings?" Quarterly Journal of Economics 106 (November 1991). Angrist, J. "Lifetime Earnings and the Vietnam-Era Draft Lottery: Evidence From Social Security Administrative Records." American Economic Review 80 (June 1990). Krueger, A. "How Computers Have Changed the Wage Structure." Quarterly Journal of Economics 108 (February 1993). DiNardo, J., and J. S. Pischke. "The Returns to Computer Use Revisited: Have Pencils Changed the Wage Structure Too?" Quarterly Journal of Economics 112 (February 1997): 291-303. |
| 6 | The Wage Structure | Borjas. Chapter 8. Ehrenberg and Smith. Chapter 14. Autor, D., L. Katz, and M. Kearney. "Trends in U.S. Wage Inequality: Re-Assessing the Revisionists." NBER Working Paper 11627, September 2005. |
| 7 | Discrimination | Borjas. Chapter 10. Ehrenberg and Smith. Chapter 12. Lau, et al. Chapter 7. Application: The Effects of Anti-discrimination Policy Heckman, J., and B. Payner. "Determining the Impact of Federal Anti-discrimination Policy on the Economic Status of Blacks: A Study of South Carolina." American Economic Review 79: 138-177. Angrist, J., and D. Acemoglu. "Consequences of Employment Protection? The Case of the Americans with Disabilities Act." Journal of Political Economy (October 2001). |
| 8 | Unions, Contracts, and Strikes in the Labor Market | Borjas. Chapter 11. Ehrenberg and Smith. Chapter 13. Farber, H. "The Economic Analysis of Unions." Chapter 18 in The Handbook of Labor Economics. Edited by O. Ashenfelter and R. Layard. North-Holland, 1986. Applications: Union Relative Wage Effects Lewis, H. G. Union Relative Wage Effects: A Survey. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1986. DiNardo and D. S. Lee. "Economic Impacts of New Unionization on U.S. Private Sector Employers: 1984-2001." QJE 119 (2004): 1383-1442. |
| 9 | Incentives | Borjas. Chapter 12. Ehrenberg and Smith. Chapter 11. |
| 10 | Unemployment and Unemployment Insurance | Borjas. Chapter 13. Ehrenberg and Smith. Chapter 15. Application: Effects of UI on Unemployment Duration Woodbury, S., and R. Speigelman. "Bonuses to Workers and Employers to Reduce Unemployment: Randomized Trials in Illinois." American Economic Review 77 (September 1987): 513-530. Meyer, B. "A Quasi-experimental Approach to Measuring the Effects of Unemployment Insurance." NBER Working Paper No 3159, November 1989. |
Table of Contents
Study Materials
Readings
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This section contains the required and supplementary readings for the course.
Required Text
Borjas, G. Labor Economics. 3rd ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2004. ISBN: 0072871776.
Optional and Supplementary Readings
Ehrenberg, R., and R. Smith. Modern Labor Economics: Theory and Public Policy. 9th ed. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 2005. ISBN: 0321305035.
Nicholson, W. Microeconomic Theory: Basic Principles and Extensions. 9th ed. Boston, MA: South-Western, 2004. ISBN: 0324270860. (Price theory review.)
Wooldridge, J. Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach. 3rd ed. Boston, MA: South-Western College Pub, 2005. ISBN: 0324289782. (Econometrics review, with Labor examples.)
Deaton, A., and J. Muellbauer. Economics and Consumer Behavior. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1980. ISBN: 0521296765. (A relatively advanced text in applied consumer theory, still one of my favorites.)
Blau, F., M. Ferber, and A. Winkler. The Economics of Women, Men, and Work. 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2005. ISBN: 0131851543.
Readings by Session
Readings with only the name of the author and chapter numbers refer to the readings listed above.