Labour Economics

Course goals

Learning objectives
At the end of the course the student can:

• Demonstrate knowledge of how modern labour markets work and identify current challenges.
• Translate some of today’s societal challenges for modern labour markets into economic questions.
• Apply quantitative methods to analyse empirical labour market data.
• Interpret and elaborate on empirical evidence of current challenges in modern labour markets.
• As a labour economist, inform an interdisciplinary debate about the future of work.

Content

Labour economics examines many topics, ranging from labour supply and demand to macroeconomic questions such as inequality and unemployment. Examples of questions that are addressed in this course are:

• What is the impact of the minimum wage on employment and wage inequality?
• Why do educated workers earn more?
• What is the impact of robots on labour demand for skilled and unskilled workers?
• What is the impact of immigration on natives?
• Why is discrimination on the labour market so pervasive?
• How does union membership affect wages?
• Why is there unemployment?
• What is the impact of welfare programs such as a universal basic income on labour supply?
• Why is inequality rising?

In addition to outlining theories that can answer these and other questions, the course also provides an overview of empirical methods used in labour economics. 

Academic Skills
This course will focus on the development of the following academic skills:

• Analytical skills
  • Capable of distinguishing between different steps in a complex assignment and working independently to arrive at a solution.
• Information processing
  • Knowledge of potential sources for literature and data and the skills to explore these independently.
  • Being able to process and analyse data and summarise empirical findings.
• Academic reasoning
  • Being able to think as a labour economist at an academic level in a domain that intersects with other social sciences.
  • Being able to formulate critical questions and link empirical results to economic theory.
  • Being able to establish a link between different research designs.

Effort requirements
Attend at least 6 tutorial sessions.

Format
Weekly lectures on Wednesday and tutorials on Friday.

Language of instruction
English

Courses that build on this course:
Causes and Consequences of Inequality (research) (ECB3INQ)

In case online access is required for this course and you are not in the position to buy the access code, you are advised to contact the course coordinator for an alternative solution. Please note that access codes are not re-usable meaning that codes from second hand books do not work, as well as access codes from books with a different ISBN. Separate or spare codes are usually not available.