Fall 2005 Course Readings / Schedule

Note: Readings correspond to NEXT class preparation
Week 1 - Introduction: Concepts, Definitions and Basic Labor Market Model
1) Mon September 5 Basic LE concepts and definitions, Trends in the US Labor Market
All of Chapter 1 & Chapter 2
A nice summary of positive versus normative analyses
       
2) Wed September 7 Modes of Analysis, The Basic Labor Market Model
Reread Chapter 2 pp. 36-39
The Economics of Conscription by Virginia Postrel
The Role of Economists in Ending the Draft from Econ Journal Watch
       
3) Fri September 9 TBA
      Chapter 3 pp. 59-70
      Fake Story at the Times ... How the Media Gets Labor Markets Dead Wrong
      The Taco Bell Boycott - How NOT to Help Low Wage Workers
  Third World Work in the Apparel Industry? Should we Sweat It?
  Walmart as the Evil Profit Seeker by Don Boudreaux
 
Week 2 - Demand for Labor
4) Mon September 12 Profit Max., SR Labor Demand, Substitution and Scale Effects
Chapter 3 pp. 70-81
The Demand for Labor - by Hans Sennholz
       
5) Wed September 14 TBA
       
6) Fri September 16 LR Labor Demand; Noncomp. Product Markets, Monopsony
      Who Benefits from Change? by Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen
      Why Walmart Pays Less by Russell Roberts
      An Infinite Contradiction
 
Week 3 - Labor Demand Elasticities, Quasi-Fixed Costs and Training
7) Mon September 19 Chapter 4 pp. 93-107; Chapter 5 p. 129-145
       
8) Wed September 21 Elasticities
Chapter 4 pp. 107-119, 122-128; Chapter 5 pp. 145-152
Effects of Rising Health Insurance Premiums
Colleges and Coaches Struggle With New Pay Requirements
What You Need to Know About the Minimum Wage by Shawn Ritenour
Empirical Effects of Living Wage Laws
Case Studies of the Minimum Wage from an Actual Businessperson
Winners and Losers in State and Federal Minimum Wage Laws by MaCurdy and McIntyre
Protectionism and Unemployment
       
9) Fri September 23 Mandated Wage Rates, Nonwage Labor Costs and Int'l Trade
      Can Walmart Pay More
      Who's Minding the Store? - NAFTA and Job Creation
      How Safe is That Trucker in the Window?
      Free Trade Trade-Offs Always Pay Off
Chapter 5 pp. 153-163
Why Do Employers Pay for College? by Peter Cappelli
Community colleges in North Carolina struggle to provide retraining to displaced blue-collar workers
It's Time to Privatize Unemployment Insurance
 
Week 4 - Labor Demand Cont'd; Labor Supply
10) Mon September 26 Multiperiod Labor Demand, General and Specific Training
DUE DATE FOR PAPER TOPICS
       
11) Wed September 28 TBA
       
12) Fri September 30 Finish Chapter 5 if you have not done so
DUE DATE FOR SCHEDULING FIRST PROJECT MEETING WITH ME
 
Week 5 - Labor Supply
13) Mon October 1 Individual Labor Supply and the Decision to Work: Theory
Chapter 6 pp. 165-180
The Wages of Walmart by Don Boudreaux
The Ethics of Dwarf Tossing by Tim Harford
 
14) Wed October 3 Chapter 6 pp. 180-192
Mandated Short Work Weeks - A Good Idea?
Will the Bush Tax Cuts Pay Off? Alan Krueger
       
15) Fri October 5 Income and Substitution Effects
      Chapter 6 pp. 192-203
      Why Government Jobs Programs Destroys Jobs
      Proposals to Help Low Wage Laborers - from the Chronicle of Higher Education
      Labor Supply Effects of the EITC
      The Welfare Act of 1996 - Provisions
       
Week 9 - Household and Life Cycle Labor Supply Human Capital: Investments in Schooling
24) Mon October 31 Understanding Impact of Policy Changes on Budget Constraint
Chapter 7 pp. 203-216
Changes in the Labor Supply Behavior of Married Women by Fran Blau and Larry Kahn
What Larry Summers Got Right
When - and Where - To Have a Baby
       
25) Wed November 2 Household and Life-Cycle Labor Supply
Chapter 7 pp. 216-228
      Household Allocations of Time and Church Attendance
       
26) Fri November 4 Open date
 
Week 10 - Human Capital: Investments in Schooling
27) Mon November 7 Chapter 9 pp. 275-288
Ability Sorting and the Returns to College Major
Income Gaps found among the college educated ... really?
 
28) Wed November 9 Education as an Investment
Chapter 9 pp. 297-311
      Does College Still Pay?
      The Public Interest in Higher Education by Michael Rizzo
      The Weak Case for Public Schooling by David Friedman
       
29) Fri November 11 Chapter 9 pp. 288-297
Using Terror Alert Levels to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime
 
Week 11 - Human Capital: Investments in Education and Training; Occupational Choice
30) Mon November 14 Human Capital Decisions: On the Job Training
Chapter 8 pp. 239-260
      The Alternatives to Poor Working Conditions
Accident Externalities
       
31) Wed November 16 Compensating Wage Differentials
Chapter 8 pp. 260-267
      The Joy of Market Clearing Wages - Regulation and Happiness by Bryan Caplan
Compensating Wage Differentials and the Optimal Provision of Unemployment Insurance by David Anderson
Compensating Differentials - Wages for Insurance
 
32) Fri November 18 Compensating Wage Differentials
Chapter 10 pp. 323-343
The Empirical Truth about the Impacts of Immigration by David Card
Feds Arrest Workers at Walmart
Foreign Workers and Cruise Ship Labor
Triumph of 2nd Generation Immigrants
LAST DAY TO SUBMIT DRAFT EMPIRICAL PROJECT
 
Week 12 - Human Capital: Mobility
33) Mon November 21 Human Capital Decisions: Worker Mobility and Migration
Chapter 10 pp. 343-350
Tyler Cown on "Do Immigrants Depress Wages?"
Gary Becker on Immigration
Islamist Violence and Immigration Policy
Why are We Mashing Migrants?
Business Cheers Bush's Plan to Hire Immigrants More Easily, but Labor Is Wary
Labor Market Impacts of High-Skilled Immigrants by George Borjas
 
  Wed November 23 NO CLASS - THANKSGIVING BREAK
       
  Fri November 25 NO CLASS - THANKSGIVING BREAK
 
Week 13 - Human Capital: Mobility
34) Mon November 28 Human Capital Decisions: Worker Mobility and Job Turnover
      Jobs Are Not A Scarce Resource
Chapter 11 pp. 353-369
Why Obesity Lowers Wages
 
35) Wed November 30 Worker Motivation
Chapter 11 pp. 369-385
Do Tournaments Have Incentive Effects? A Look at the PGA Tour
       
36) Fri December 12 Level and Sequencing of Pay; Applications
  Gender Differences Among PhD Economists
  How Do Babies With Super Black Names Fare? ... some Economics, Freaky style
  Is this discrimination?
  Kanazawa, M. T., et. al., Racial discrimination in professional basketball: evidence from the Nielsen ratings Economic Inquiry v. 39 no. 4 (October 2001) p. 599-608
  Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination by MARIANNE BERTRAND AND SENDHIL MULLAINATHAN
  Neumark, David. “Sex Discrimination in Restaurant Hiring: An Audit Study.” Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 1996, 111(3), pp. 915–42.
 
Week 14 - Labor Market Discrimination
37) Mon December 5 Labor Market Discrimination: Definitions and Measurement
Chapter 12 pp. 406-429
Premarket Factors Affecting Discrimination by Heckman, et al
Pay Differences in the Sciences
Gary Becker's take on Gender Differences in Science
Culture and the Inequality Taboo
Comparable Worth - Turning into Paternalism
       
38) Wed December 7 Labor Market Discrimination: Theories, Equal Pay for Equal Work, Remedies
      Mixon, F. G. J., et. al., How Race Affects Dismissals of College Football Coaches . Journal of Labor Research v. 25 no. 4 (Fall 2004) p. 645-56
 
39) Fri December 9 Discrimination, Cont'd
 
Read these for possible extra credit:
The Escalation of Income
Understanding Income Inequality in the U.S.
      EMPIRICAL PROJECTS DUE