| ECON 251 Syllabus (Spring 2018) |
ECON 251 Labor Economics
Scholarly Articles
Labor Supply
Heckman, J. (1993) “What Have We Learned about Labor Supply in the Last 25 Years?” American Economic Review.
Becker, G. (1965) “A Theory of the Allocation of Time.” Economic Journal.
Gronau, R. (1977) “Leisure, Home Production, and Work–The Theory of Allocation of Time Revisited.” Journal of Political Economy.
Heckman, J. (1974) “Shadow Prices, Market Wages, and Labor Supply.” Econometrica.
Lemieux, T., B. Fortin, and P. Fréchette (1994) “The Effect of Taxes on Labor Supply in the Underground Economy.” American Economic Review
Wage Determination
Gibbons, Robert and Lawrence F. Katz. (1991) “Layoffs and Lemons,” Journal of Labor Economics, 9(4): 351 – 380.
Minimum Wage Analysis
Card, David and Alan B. 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.
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.
Reich, Michael, Sylvia Allegretto, and Anna Godoey. (2017). “Seattle’s Minimum Wage Experience 2015-2016”. CWED Policy Brief.
Human Capital
Bowlus, Audra, and Huju Liu. (2013) “The Contributions of Search and Human Capital to Earnings Growth over the Life Cycle.” European Economic Review.
Chassamboulli, Andri. (2011) “Cyclical Upgrading of Labor and Employment Differences across Skill Groups,” B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics.
Angrist, J. and A. Krueger. (1991) “Does Compulsory Schooling Attendance Affect Schooling and Earnings?” Quarterly Journal of Economics.
Ashenfelter, O. and A. Krueger. (1994) “Estimates of the Economic Return to Schooling from a New Sample of Twins.” American Economic Review.
Job Search
Krueger, Alan, and Andreas Mueller. (2016) “A Contribution to the Empirics of Reservation Wages.” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy.
Eckstein, Zvi, and Gerard van den Berg. (2007) “Empirical Labor Search: A Survey.” Journal of Econometrics.
Rogerson, Richard, Robert Shimer and Randall Wright. (2005) “Search-Theoretic Models of the Labor Market: A Survey.” Journal of Economic Literature.
Unemployment
Krueger, Alan, and Andreas Mueller. (2012) “The Lot of the Unemployed: A Time Use Perspective.” Journal of the European Economic Association.
Unions
Card, “The Effects of Unions on Wage Inequality in the US Labor Market.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review.
Supplemental Readings Handouts
- Wage Determination - Why did Mayweather earn so much more than McGregor? (The National); The Pursuit of Happyness [Promotion Tournament] (YouTube)
- Human Capital and Signaling - Signaling (MR University - YouTube); Human Capital and Signaling (MR University - YouTube); Econ Duel: Is Education Signaling or Skill Building? (MR University - YouTube); Human Capital (Gary Becker - EconLib); The College Amenities Arms Race (Forbes)
- Unemployment and Search Theory - The Great Depression (EconLib); Wartime Prosperity? A Reassessment of the U.S. Economy in the 1940s (The Independent Institute);The Great Recession, 10 Years Later (FEE); The Great Recession (Marginal Revolution); California's unemployment rate shrinks - but so do the number of jobs (LA Times)
- Mobility and Immigration - Border follies (The Economist); No, Immigrants Won’t Make Welfare State Bigger (Cato); Want a global economic boom? Open the borders (Washington Post); 3 Reasons Why Immigrants Are Key To Economic Growth (Forbes);Immigration Myths with Ben Powell (YouTube); Prof. Bryan Caplan on “The Economics of Immigration” (YouTube); The Economics of Immigration Restrictions
- Labor Market Regulations - Why Do So Many Need the Government's Permission to Work? (Institute for Justice - YouTube); License to Work Report (v2); A Family-Friendly Policy That’s Friendliest to Male Professors (NYT); Minimum wages were first designed to keep women and minorities out of jobs (L.A. Times); Thomas Sowell on the differential impact of the minimum wage (AEI); Characteristics of minimum wage workers (BLS 2016)
Research Resources
Data Resources
Other Resources
Reference Management Software (Free)
- Federal Reserve of St. Louis - Population, Employment, and Labor Markets
- Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Bureau of Economic Analysis
- Census Data
- Current Population Survey
- National Longitudinal Surveys
- Employment Research Data Center (The Upjohn Institute)
- University of Minnesota IPUMS
- DataFerrett
Other Resources
- AEA Resources for Economists
- American Enterprise Institute
- The Independent Institute
- The Foundation for Economic Education
- The National Bureau of Economic Research (use an .edu email to access papers)
- SJSU Resources for Student Success
Reference Management Software (Free)
Class Resources
TBD