3 credits
Fall 2025 Lecture Upper DivisionThe purpose of this course is to introduce important theories, institutions, policy issues, and empirical methods related to labor markets. Topics include: labor demand and supply, migration, investments in human capital, job attributes and fringe benefits, matching, sorting and signaling in labor markets, unemployment, discrimination, and the income distribution. Empirically testing theories and statistics are emphasized.
Learning Outcomes1Analyze theoretical models of labor markets, e.g., agents, their objectives and constraints, market equilibrium, comparative statics, and optimality.
2Describe, and make inferences from, labor market data using statistics.
3Evaluate policies in terms of their predicted effects on labor market equilibria and empirically estimated effects.
4Identify problems with labor market performance and compare alternative solutions.
5Communicate clearly and concisely about economic theory and data using writing, speech, graphs and tables, and math notation.