| ECON 251 Syllabus [Fall 2020] |
ECON 251 Labor Economics
Supplemental Readings: Scholarly Articles
Instructor Note: Article information is provided but students are expected to find articles using the SJSU Library and InterLibrary Loan (ILLiad). Students are responsible for reading all articles for a section except those specified as optional.
Module 2: Demand and Elasticity
Hamermesh, Daniel S. 1986. "The demand for labor in the long run." Handbook of Labor Economics, 1: 429-471.
Hamermesh, Daniel S. and Stephen J. Trejo. 2000. "The Demand for Hours of Labor: Direct Evidence from California." Review of Economics and Statistics, 82(1): 38-47.
Hasan, Rana, Devashish Mitra and K.V. Ramaswamy. 2007. "Trade Reforms, Labor Regulations, and Labor-Demand Elasticities: Empirical Evidence from India." Review of Economics and Statistics, 89(3): 466-481.
Module 3: Frictions and Firm Decisions
Currie, Janet. 1991. "Employment Determination in a Unionized Public-Sector Labor Market: The Case of Ontario's School Teachers." Journal of Labor Economics, 9(1): 45-66.
Goldan, Limor. 2005. "Counteroffers and Efficiency in Labor Markets with Asymmetric Information." Journal of Labor Economics, 23(2): 373-393.
Horn, Henrick and Asher Wolinsky. 1988. "Bilateral Monopolies and Incentives for Merger." RAND Journal of Economics, 19(3): 408-419.
Module 4: Supply and the Decision to Work
Banfi, Stefano and Benjamín Villena-Roldán, 2019. "Do High-Wage Jobs Attract More Applicants? Directed Search Evidence from the Online Labor Market," Journal of Labor Economics, 37(3): 715-746.
Becker, Gary. 1965. “A Theory of the Allocation of Time.” Economic Journal, 75(299): 493-517.
Gronau, Reuben. 1977. “Leisure, Home Production, and Work–The Theory of Allocation of Time Revisited.” Journal of Political Economy, 85(6): 1099-1123.
Optional Reading:
Heckman, James. 1974. “Shadow Prices, Market Wages, and Labor Supply.” Econometrica, 83(2): 116-121.
Module 5: Wage Determination
Gibbons, Robert, Lawrence F. Katz, Thomas Lemieux, and Daniel Parent. 2005. "Comparative Advantage, Learning, and Sectoral Wage Determination" Journal of Labor Economics, 23(4): 381-724.
Gruetter, Max and Rafael Lalive. 2009. "The importance of firms in wage determination." Labour Economics, 16(2): 149-160.
Nunziata, Luca. 2005. "Institutions and Wage Determination: a Multi-country Approach." Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 67(4): 435-466.
Module 6: Compensating Differentials
Carlino, Gerald and N. Edward Coulson. 2004. "Compensating differentials and the social benefits of the NFL." Journal of Urban Economics, 56(1): 25-50.
Powell, David. 2012. "Compensating Differentials and Income Taxes: Are the Wages of Dangerous Jobs More Responsive to Tax Changes than the Wages of Safe Jobs?" Journal of Human Resources, 47(4): 1023-1054.
Viscusi, W. Kip and Joni Hersch. 2001. "Cigarette Smokers as Job Risk Takers." Review of Economics and Statistics, 83(2): 269-280.
Module 8: Human Capital and Signaling
Ashenfelter, Orley. and Alan Krueger. 1994. “Estimates of the Economic Return to Schooling from a New Sample of Twins.” American Economic Review, 84(5): 1157-1173.
Bowlus, Audra, and Huju Liu. 2013. “The Contributions of Search and Human Capital to Earnings Growth over the Life Cycle.” European Economic Review, 64: 305-331.
Weiss, Andrew. 1995. "Human Capital vs. Signalling Explanations of Wages." Journal of Economic Perspectives, 9(4): 133-154.
Optional Reading:
Autor, David. 2001. "Why Do Temporary Help Firms Provide Free General Skills Training?" Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(4): 1409-1448.
Chassamboulli, Andri. 2011. “Cyclical Upgrading of Labor and Employment Differences across Skill Groups.” B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, 11(1): 1-42.
Module 9: Unemployment and Search Theory
Eckstein, Zvi, and Gerard van den Berg. 2007. “Empirical Labor Search: A Survey.” Journal of Econometrics, 136(2): 531-564.
Krueger, Alan, and Andreas Mueller. 2016. “A Contribution to the Empirics of Reservation Wages.” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 8(1): 142-179.
Macleod, W. Bentley, James Malcomson, and Paul Gomme. 1994. "Labor Turnover and the Natural Rate of Unemployment: Efficiency Wage versus Frictional Unemployment." Journal of Labor Economics, 12(2): 276-315.
Optional Reading:
Groen, Jeffrey, Mark Kutzbach, and Anne Polivka. 2020. "Storms and Jobs: The Effect of Hurricanes on Individuals’ Employment and Earnings over the Long Term." Journal of Labor Economics, 28(3): 653-685.
Krueger, Alan, and Andreas Mueller. 2012. “The Lot of the Unemployed: A Time Use Perspective.” Journal of the European Economic Association, 10(4): 765-794.
Rogerson, Richard, Robert Shimer and Randall Wright. 2005. “Search-Theoretic Models of the Labor Market: A Survey.” Journal of Economic Literature, 43(4): 959-988.
Module 10: Mobility and Migration
Johnson, Janna E., and Morris M. Kleiner. 2020. "Is Occupational Licensing a Barrier to Interstate Migration?" American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 12 (3): 347-73.
Partridge, Mark D., Dan S. Rickman, M. Rose Olfert, and Kamar Ali. 2012. "Dwindling U.S. internal migration: Evidence of spatial equilibrium or structural shifts in local labor markets?" Regional Science and Urban Economics, 42(2): 375-388.
Sasser, Alicia C. 2010. "Voting with their feet: Relative economic conditions and state migration patterns." Regional Science and Urban Economics, (40(2): 122-135.
Module 11: Immigration and Trade
Borjas, George. 2003. "The Labor Demand Curve is Downward Sloping: Reexamining the Impact of Immigration on the Labor Market." The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(4): 1335-1374.
Boubtane, Ekrame, Jean-Christophe Dumont, and Christophe Rault. 2016. "Immigration and economic growth in the OECD countries 1986–2006." Oxford Economic Papers, 68(2): 340-360.
Clemens, Michael, A. 2011. "Economics and Emigration: Trillion-Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk?" Journal of Economic Perspectives, 25(3): 83-106.
Optional Readings:
Kennan, John. 2012. "Open Borders." NBER Working Paper.
Clemens, Michael, Claudio Montenegro, and Lant Pritchett. 2009. "The Place Premium: Wage Differences for Identical Workers across the US Border." HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP09-004.
Module 12: Labor Market Regulations
Blair, Peter Q. and Chung, Bobby W. 2019. "How Much of Barrier to Entry is Occupational Licensing?" British Journal of Industrial Relations, 57(4): 919-943.
Jardim, Ekaterina, Mark C. Long, Robert Plotnick, Emma van Inwegen, Jacob Vigdor, Hilary Wething. 2017. “Minimum Wage Increases, Wages, and Low-Wage Employment: Evidence From Seattle.” NBER Working Paper.
Kleiner, Morris M. and Alan B. Krueger. 2013. "Analyzing the Extent and Influence of Occupational Licensing on the Labor Market." Journal of Labor Economics, 31(2): S173-S202.
Optional Reading:
Card, David and Alan Krueger. 2000. "A Reanalysis of the Effect of the New Jersey Minimum Wage Increase on the Fast-Food Industry with Representative Payroll Data." American Economic Review, 90(5): 1397-1420.
Lemieux, Thomas, Bernard Fortin, and Pierre Fréchette. 1994. “The Effect of Taxes on Labor Supply in the Underground Economy.” American Economic Review, 84(1): 231-254.
Module 13: Discrimination
Ahmed, Ali M., Lina Andersson and Mats Hammarstedt. 2013. "Are Gay Men and Lesbians Discriminated against in the Hiring Process?" Southern Economic Journal, 79(3): 565-585
Bertrand, Marianne, and Sendhil Mullainathan. 2004. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination." American Economic Review, 94 (4): 991-1013.
Bertrand, Marianne, Claudia Goldin, and Lawrence F. Katz. 2010. "Dynamics of the Gender Gap for Young Professionals in the Financial and Corporate Sectors." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2(3): 228-55.
Optional Reading:
Agan, Amanda and Sonja Starr. 2018. "Ban the Box, Criminal Records, and Racial Discrimination: A Field Experiment." Quarterly Journal of Economics, 133(1): 191-235.
Burn, Ian, Patrick Button, Luis Felipe Munguia Corella, and David Neumark. 2020. "Older Workers Need Not Apply?" Ageist Language in Job Ads and Age Discrimination in Hiring." NBER Working Paper.
Neumark, David. 2018. "Experimental Research on Labor Market Discrimination." Journal of Economic Literature, 56 (3): 799-866.
Module 14: Health Insurance
Baicker, Katherine and Amitabh Chandra. 2006. "The Labor Market Effects of Rising Health Insurance Premiums." Journal of Labor Economics, 24(3): 609-634.
Garthwaite, Craig, Tal Gross, and Matthew J. Notowidigdo. 2014. "Public Health Insurance, Labor Supply, and Employment Lock." Quarterly Journal of Economics, 129(2): 653-696.
Gruber, Jonathan and Brigitte C. Madrian. 2002. "Health Insurance, Labor Supply, and Job Mobility: A Critical Review of the Literature." NBER Working Paper.
Optional Reading:
Currie, Janet and Brigitte C. Madrian. 1999. "Health, health insurance and the labor market." Handbook of Labor Economics, 3(C); 3309-3416.
Gruber, Jonathan. 2000. "Health Insurance and the Labor Market." Handbook of Health Economics, 1(A): 645-706.
Module 2: Demand and Elasticity
Hamermesh, Daniel S. 1986. "The demand for labor in the long run." Handbook of Labor Economics, 1: 429-471.
Hamermesh, Daniel S. and Stephen J. Trejo. 2000. "The Demand for Hours of Labor: Direct Evidence from California." Review of Economics and Statistics, 82(1): 38-47.
Hasan, Rana, Devashish Mitra and K.V. Ramaswamy. 2007. "Trade Reforms, Labor Regulations, and Labor-Demand Elasticities: Empirical Evidence from India." Review of Economics and Statistics, 89(3): 466-481.
Module 3: Frictions and Firm Decisions
Currie, Janet. 1991. "Employment Determination in a Unionized Public-Sector Labor Market: The Case of Ontario's School Teachers." Journal of Labor Economics, 9(1): 45-66.
Goldan, Limor. 2005. "Counteroffers and Efficiency in Labor Markets with Asymmetric Information." Journal of Labor Economics, 23(2): 373-393.
Horn, Henrick and Asher Wolinsky. 1988. "Bilateral Monopolies and Incentives for Merger." RAND Journal of Economics, 19(3): 408-419.
Module 4: Supply and the Decision to Work
Banfi, Stefano and Benjamín Villena-Roldán, 2019. "Do High-Wage Jobs Attract More Applicants? Directed Search Evidence from the Online Labor Market," Journal of Labor Economics, 37(3): 715-746.
Becker, Gary. 1965. “A Theory of the Allocation of Time.” Economic Journal, 75(299): 493-517.
Gronau, Reuben. 1977. “Leisure, Home Production, and Work–The Theory of Allocation of Time Revisited.” Journal of Political Economy, 85(6): 1099-1123.
Optional Reading:
Heckman, James. 1974. “Shadow Prices, Market Wages, and Labor Supply.” Econometrica, 83(2): 116-121.
Module 5: Wage Determination
Gibbons, Robert, Lawrence F. Katz, Thomas Lemieux, and Daniel Parent. 2005. "Comparative Advantage, Learning, and Sectoral Wage Determination" Journal of Labor Economics, 23(4): 381-724.
Gruetter, Max and Rafael Lalive. 2009. "The importance of firms in wage determination." Labour Economics, 16(2): 149-160.
Nunziata, Luca. 2005. "Institutions and Wage Determination: a Multi-country Approach." Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 67(4): 435-466.
Module 6: Compensating Differentials
Carlino, Gerald and N. Edward Coulson. 2004. "Compensating differentials and the social benefits of the NFL." Journal of Urban Economics, 56(1): 25-50.
Powell, David. 2012. "Compensating Differentials and Income Taxes: Are the Wages of Dangerous Jobs More Responsive to Tax Changes than the Wages of Safe Jobs?" Journal of Human Resources, 47(4): 1023-1054.
Viscusi, W. Kip and Joni Hersch. 2001. "Cigarette Smokers as Job Risk Takers." Review of Economics and Statistics, 83(2): 269-280.
Module 8: Human Capital and Signaling
Ashenfelter, Orley. and Alan Krueger. 1994. “Estimates of the Economic Return to Schooling from a New Sample of Twins.” American Economic Review, 84(5): 1157-1173.
Bowlus, Audra, and Huju Liu. 2013. “The Contributions of Search and Human Capital to Earnings Growth over the Life Cycle.” European Economic Review, 64: 305-331.
Weiss, Andrew. 1995. "Human Capital vs. Signalling Explanations of Wages." Journal of Economic Perspectives, 9(4): 133-154.
Optional Reading:
Autor, David. 2001. "Why Do Temporary Help Firms Provide Free General Skills Training?" Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(4): 1409-1448.
Chassamboulli, Andri. 2011. “Cyclical Upgrading of Labor and Employment Differences across Skill Groups.” B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, 11(1): 1-42.
Module 9: Unemployment and Search Theory
Eckstein, Zvi, and Gerard van den Berg. 2007. “Empirical Labor Search: A Survey.” Journal of Econometrics, 136(2): 531-564.
Krueger, Alan, and Andreas Mueller. 2016. “A Contribution to the Empirics of Reservation Wages.” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 8(1): 142-179.
Macleod, W. Bentley, James Malcomson, and Paul Gomme. 1994. "Labor Turnover and the Natural Rate of Unemployment: Efficiency Wage versus Frictional Unemployment." Journal of Labor Economics, 12(2): 276-315.
Optional Reading:
Groen, Jeffrey, Mark Kutzbach, and Anne Polivka. 2020. "Storms and Jobs: The Effect of Hurricanes on Individuals’ Employment and Earnings over the Long Term." Journal of Labor Economics, 28(3): 653-685.
Krueger, Alan, and Andreas Mueller. 2012. “The Lot of the Unemployed: A Time Use Perspective.” Journal of the European Economic Association, 10(4): 765-794.
Rogerson, Richard, Robert Shimer and Randall Wright. 2005. “Search-Theoretic Models of the Labor Market: A Survey.” Journal of Economic Literature, 43(4): 959-988.
Module 10: Mobility and Migration
Johnson, Janna E., and Morris M. Kleiner. 2020. "Is Occupational Licensing a Barrier to Interstate Migration?" American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 12 (3): 347-73.
Partridge, Mark D., Dan S. Rickman, M. Rose Olfert, and Kamar Ali. 2012. "Dwindling U.S. internal migration: Evidence of spatial equilibrium or structural shifts in local labor markets?" Regional Science and Urban Economics, 42(2): 375-388.
Sasser, Alicia C. 2010. "Voting with their feet: Relative economic conditions and state migration patterns." Regional Science and Urban Economics, (40(2): 122-135.
Module 11: Immigration and Trade
Borjas, George. 2003. "The Labor Demand Curve is Downward Sloping: Reexamining the Impact of Immigration on the Labor Market." The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(4): 1335-1374.
Boubtane, Ekrame, Jean-Christophe Dumont, and Christophe Rault. 2016. "Immigration and economic growth in the OECD countries 1986–2006." Oxford Economic Papers, 68(2): 340-360.
Clemens, Michael, A. 2011. "Economics and Emigration: Trillion-Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk?" Journal of Economic Perspectives, 25(3): 83-106.
Optional Readings:
Kennan, John. 2012. "Open Borders." NBER Working Paper.
Clemens, Michael, Claudio Montenegro, and Lant Pritchett. 2009. "The Place Premium: Wage Differences for Identical Workers across the US Border." HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP09-004.
Module 12: Labor Market Regulations
Blair, Peter Q. and Chung, Bobby W. 2019. "How Much of Barrier to Entry is Occupational Licensing?" British Journal of Industrial Relations, 57(4): 919-943.
Jardim, Ekaterina, Mark C. Long, Robert Plotnick, Emma van Inwegen, Jacob Vigdor, Hilary Wething. 2017. “Minimum Wage Increases, Wages, and Low-Wage Employment: Evidence From Seattle.” NBER Working Paper.
Kleiner, Morris M. and Alan B. Krueger. 2013. "Analyzing the Extent and Influence of Occupational Licensing on the Labor Market." Journal of Labor Economics, 31(2): S173-S202.
Optional Reading:
Card, David and Alan Krueger. 2000. "A Reanalysis of the Effect of the New Jersey Minimum Wage Increase on the Fast-Food Industry with Representative Payroll Data." American Economic Review, 90(5): 1397-1420.
Lemieux, Thomas, Bernard Fortin, and Pierre Fréchette. 1994. “The Effect of Taxes on Labor Supply in the Underground Economy.” American Economic Review, 84(1): 231-254.
Module 13: Discrimination
Ahmed, Ali M., Lina Andersson and Mats Hammarstedt. 2013. "Are Gay Men and Lesbians Discriminated against in the Hiring Process?" Southern Economic Journal, 79(3): 565-585
Bertrand, Marianne, and Sendhil Mullainathan. 2004. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination." American Economic Review, 94 (4): 991-1013.
Bertrand, Marianne, Claudia Goldin, and Lawrence F. Katz. 2010. "Dynamics of the Gender Gap for Young Professionals in the Financial and Corporate Sectors." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2(3): 228-55.
Optional Reading:
Agan, Amanda and Sonja Starr. 2018. "Ban the Box, Criminal Records, and Racial Discrimination: A Field Experiment." Quarterly Journal of Economics, 133(1): 191-235.
Burn, Ian, Patrick Button, Luis Felipe Munguia Corella, and David Neumark. 2020. "Older Workers Need Not Apply?" Ageist Language in Job Ads and Age Discrimination in Hiring." NBER Working Paper.
Neumark, David. 2018. "Experimental Research on Labor Market Discrimination." Journal of Economic Literature, 56 (3): 799-866.
Module 14: Health Insurance
Baicker, Katherine and Amitabh Chandra. 2006. "The Labor Market Effects of Rising Health Insurance Premiums." Journal of Labor Economics, 24(3): 609-634.
Garthwaite, Craig, Tal Gross, and Matthew J. Notowidigdo. 2014. "Public Health Insurance, Labor Supply, and Employment Lock." Quarterly Journal of Economics, 129(2): 653-696.
Gruber, Jonathan and Brigitte C. Madrian. 2002. "Health Insurance, Labor Supply, and Job Mobility: A Critical Review of the Literature." NBER Working Paper.
Optional Reading:
Currie, Janet and Brigitte C. Madrian. 1999. "Health, health insurance and the labor market." Handbook of Labor Economics, 3(C); 3309-3416.
Gruber, Jonathan. 2000. "Health Insurance and the Labor Market." Handbook of Health Economics, 1(A): 645-706.