Labour Economics
Code
2145
Academic unit
null
Department
null
Credits
3,5
Teacher in charge
Pedro Portugal
Teaching language
English
Objectives
The Labour Economic course provides a modern overview of the labour market functioning, with a special emphasis on the role of labour demand and labour supply dynamics shaping the labour market equilibrium, a thus the determination of wages and employment.
Human capital investment, unemployment, wage inequality and discrimination are analysed through the lens of the labour economics theory.
Prerequisites
N/A
Subject matter
0. Overview of the Labor Market
1. The Demand for Labor
1.1 Competitive Markets
1.2 Non-Competitive Markets
2. Labor Demand Elasticities
2.1. The role of minimum wages
3. Quasi-Fixed Adjustment Costs
3.1. Firing costs and employment adjustment
4. Labor Supply
4.1. The Decision To Work
4.2 The Choice of Hours
4.2.1 The Effects of Changing Working Time Legislation in Portugal
5. Home Production
5.1. Home Production and the Allocation of Time
5.1.1 The INE Survey on Allocation of Time
6. Wage Compensating Differentials
7. Human Capital Investment
7.1 The Investment in Human Capital
7.2 General and Specific Investment
7.3 Education and Training
7.3.1 Wage-spillover effects from education
8. Worker Mobility
8.1 Worker and Job Flows in Portugal and in the US
9. Wage Determination
9.1 The sources of wage variation
10. Discrimination in the Labor Market
10.1 Everything you always wanted to know about sex discrimination
11. Unions and Wage Bargaining
11.1 The union wage gap
12. Wage Inequality
12.1 The sources of wage dispersion
13. Unemployment
13.1 Unemployment Insurance and the Duration of Unemployment
14. The Determinants of the Reservation Wages in the European Union
Bibliography
"Modern Labor Economics: Theory and Policy" (11th edition) de Ronald Ehrenberg and Robert Smith, edited by Addison Wesley, 2011.
"Labour Economics" P. Cahuc and A. Zylberg, edited by MIT press, 2004. Other material provided by the teacher.
Teaching method
The course relies heavily on lectures by the teacher. That does not pre-empt vivid discussions motivated by the news actuality, the exhibition of a number of movies, and the coaching provided to students that engage in the research note regime.
Labour studies from the European Union and Portugal will be used as case studies to motivate de discussion.
Evaluation method
-Default regime: final exam;
-Optional regime: individual research note (50%) + final exam. (50%) (subjected to the approval of the research project).