Labor Economics Course Outline

Labor Economics Course Outline

Basic information of the Course

Course Name：Labor Economics
Semester：Summer 2021	Course Time：TBA
Contact Hours: 54 hours

Brief Introduction of the Course Instructor

Instructor：TBA	Email Address：TBA
Office Hours: TBA	Teaching Assistants：TBA

General Description of the Course

This course is a thorough overview of the modern theory of labor market behavior, and reveals how this theory is used to analyze public policy. The main topics cover labor demand, labor supply, the economics of human capital, the operation of labor markets, job matching，the economic behaviour and effect of unions, selected aspects of wage structure, discrimination and inequality in job markets. Students with some background in economics may catch the elements of this course easier, but it is also suitable for students who don’t have extensive backgrounds in economics. Meanwhile，this course will present concepts through relevant, contemporary examples and help students understand scientific methodology. By the end of the course, students should be familiar with the stylized facts of the labor market and will be able to understand the modern causal inference tools used to analyse labor market and public policy issues.

Course Pattern

This course will last for 5 weeks officially. Students normally take each session from Monday to Friday. As for each day, the propositional minimum value of daily study is 1.5 hours. The total time length is 54 instructional hours with 2 hours after-class seminar weekly and no less than 90 minutes of office hours included during which students could ask questions and consult their professor with their confusion. On top of that, teaching assistants will keep track of the progress on the assignments. They will also forward students’ problems to professor and help students to deal with the problems. Regular quizzes and exams will be held depending on the progress of the course.

Prerequisite

Students who want to take this course need to complete Microeconomics first for a better understanding.

Required Course Resources and References

Author	Ronald G. Ehrenberg Robert S. Smith
Book name	Modern Labor Economics: Theory and Public Policy: International Edition
Edition	11th
Press	Pearson

Supplementary Reading Materials

Labor Economics, by George J. Borjas, first edition, McGraw-Hill Contemporary Labor Economics, by C. R. McConnell, S. L. Bruce, D. A. Macpherson, fifth edition, 1989, Irwin/McGraw Hill. labor Market Economics: Theory Evidence and Policy in Canada, by Dwayne Benjamin, Morley Gunderson, and W. Craig Riddell, fourth edition, Ryerson. Dani Rodrik. 2012. The Globalization Paradox. Democracy and the Future of the World Economy. New York: Norton. Edward P. Lazear and Michael Gibbs, “Personnel Economics in Practice,” 2nd edition, 2009.

Students Learning Targets and Outcomes

On successful completion of this course, students will be able to do the following:

1. explain the determinants of labor demand in the short run and in the long run;

2. use individual and household labor supply models to explain the supply side of the labor market;

3. understand and applying the productivity and signalling models of human capital theory;

4. explain the presence of group differences in labor market outcomes and understand different ways of empirically measuring discrimination;

5. understanding the determinants of geographic mobility and the effects of immigration on local labor markets.

Course Syllabus

Week NO.	Lesson	Tentative Lecture Schedule
Week One	Lesson 1	Introduction ：the Labor Market
	Lesson 2	The labor force and unemployment   The earnings of labor
	Lesson 3	The demand for labor   The supply of labor
	Lesson 4	Profit maximization   Policy application
	Lesson 5	The short-run and long-run demand for labor in   competitive markets and non-competitive markets
Week Two	Lesson 6	The own-wage and cross-wage elasticity of demand
	Lesson 7	Frictions in the labor market
	Lesson 8	Hiring investment
	Lesson 9	Supply of labor to the economy   A theory of the decision to work
	Lesson 10	A labor supply model   Life cycle aspects of labor supply
Week Three	Lesson 11	Job matching
	Lesson 12	Mid-term
	Lesson 13	Hedonic wage theory   The joint determination of wages and benefits
	Lesson 14	Human capital investment
	Lesson 15	Worker mobility
Week Four	Lesson 16	Employee turnover
	Lesson 17	Wage determination with the firm
	Lesson 18	Productivity and pay
	Lesson 19	Gender，race and ethnicity in the labor market
	Lesson 20	Federal programs to end discrimination
Week Five	Lesson 21	Unions and the labor market
	Lesson 22	Unemployment
	Lesson 23	Inequality in earnings
	Lesson 24	The labor market effects of international trade and   production sharing
	Lesson 25	Final

Evaluation Profile

Contents	Proportion
Assignments	25%
Mid-term	45%
Final	45%
Attendance	5%
Total	100%

Description of the Evaluation Tasks

Requirements

All exams must be completed without other unacceptable aid tools (such as cell phone, pads and impermissible calculators, especially graphic calculators) and all assignments must be fulfilled independently and should be submitted by the appointed address, date and form. Please notice that there will be no make-up exams. Their fairness and validity would be ensured.

Assignments

Students are required to finish 5 assignments during the whole course and teaching assistants will mark the assignments students submitted. (each for 5% calculated into the total grade)

Mid-Term and Final

The Mid-Term exam will be organized in the 12th lesson and Final exam will be organized at the end of the course by the authentic department. The two exams consist of four parts which are multiple choice, identification, short-answer question, and essay-type question. All the contents will be based on what student have learnt in this course.

Attendance

Students will be demanded to attend 2 hours after-class seminar per week and their attendance will be put on record. Thus please make sure to attend each episode punctually. Otherwise absence will cause deduction of grades (each for 1% on the total evaluation).

Grading Policy

Students’ grades are mainly calculated depending on evaluation policy including quizzes, mid-term and final. Besides students’ assignments and attendance performance will also be added into consideration. Students’ letter grades will be assigned according to the following grading scheme.

A+	90-100
A	85-89
A-	80-84
B+	77-79
B	73-76
B-	70-72
C+	67-69
C	63-66
C-	60-62
D	50-59
F	1-49
X	0

Academic Integrity

Students’ honesty in all academic work is a must. They are supposed to fulfill all the exams and assignments independently and strictly obey the rules and regulations. Any unacceptable aids (such as other electronic products or other person’ s help) will be seen as cheating and student will get an F for their academic performance. Plagiarism, forgery, fabrication or misrepresentation is prohibited, including but not limited to copying other person’s work or stealing other person’s ideas or thoughts, using others’ work without quotation, asking others to complete the exam on behalf of another name. Once students start the exam, they can not drop out of it for any reason in the middle of the exam. Otherwise their exam paper will be submitted immediately. Please notice that the timer will be turned on the minute students start the exam and they are expected to hand in before the stop time.

Withdrawal from the Course

Students have the right to propose a transfer or withdrawal within the first three days of starting the course with certain conditions (natural disasters, major teaching errors or teaching equipment failure). If the application is submitted within the time limitation and under condition, the tuition fee will be fully returned. If the application is submitted beyond the deadline, students’ request would be turned down. If a withdrawal is rejected, it will be recorded as W (Withdraw) on the course transcript and the class will be recorded as F (Fail).

Disabled Facilities

The University guarantees that all students with a disability will be able to make use of any school equipment. Teaching resources and teaching content are the same for all students, and students with a disability will receive the same teaching experience and opportunities. If you feel that you need special arrangements to be made due to a disability, please contact the University International Summer School directly.