LABOUR ECONOMICS

Course for the third year of the Bachelor Degree in ECONOMIA E COMMERCIO - ECONOMICS, MARKETS AND FINANCE

At the end of the course, students will:
A. Recognize labor economics as a growing research field that also aims at explaining social phenomena such as education, migration, family formation, health care decisions, etc.
B. Understand the fundamental theoretical models in labor economics
C. Identify the empirical methods used to analyze labor and social phenomena and value the empirical challenges that these methods want to address
D. Analyze and interpret statistical facts related to the labor market or related social phenomena
E. Appraise research papers in labor economics

You are expected to satisfy Ca' Foscari prerequisites regarding introductory and intermediate microeconomics courses. You are also expected to be comfortable with introductory statistics and regression analysis.

This course represents an introduction to labor economics, which has grown enormously as a research field in the past several decades. While being originally focused only on the study of the behavior of firms and workers,
modern labor research examines diverse areas such as education, health, family interactions, migration and inequality.
The course is structured in two parts. The first part covers the fundamental topics in labor economics, particularly the study of the labor market. This part of the course analyzes the individuals’ decisions to work (labor supply), the firms’ decision to hire workers (labor demand) and how an equilibrium between firms and workers is reached (labor market equilibrium). We also study special cases of labor supply decisions, such as how the decision to work is influenced by the workers’ age or the business cycle or how it changes in the context of a household in which both husband and wife makes labor supply choices.
The second part of the course covers selected topics in modern labor economics, possibly accompanied by the study of empirical applications/papers: education as an investment in human capital, migration, labor market discrimination, unemployment, wage inequality.
Our approach is both theoretical and empirical: we discuss theoretical models as well as the evidence on how well the real world matches the predictions of such models. Moreover, when presenting and discussing academic papers, the course also presents the main strategies/methods used in empirical research to analyze labor market phenomena.

Borjas, G.J., 2020, Labour Economics, 8 th edition, Mc-Graw Hill.

Additional selected papers, which constitute compulsory reading to undertake the exam, will be available on the Moodle page of the course

Written examination with open questions and exercises analogous to those solved in class. The passing grade is 18; points assigned to each question are clearly indicated in the exam.
The examination tests the student’s understanding of the topics covered in the course and his/her ability to analyse closely related problems and to interpret their results.

The course mostly follows a conventional teaching approach, combined with active learning activities

English

For any course-related information, students should trust only the course page on Moodle

written

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Human capital, health, education" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development