Labor Market Analysis

Catalog description

Neoclassical economic and institutional theoretical perspectives on labor supply, demand for labor, internal labor markets, wage determination and labor policies. HRER 816 Labor Market Analysis (3) Virtually everyone will eventually develop an intimate acquaintance with the domain of labor markets--the job market, workplace, labor force and household. This course is intended to help students better analyze general issues surrounding work, the market for labor and the employment relationship. It will reveal the interdependence of the economy, workplace structures, labor organizations, household and family structure and public institutions and policies. It will prepare students to more deeply analyze the determination of earnings and employment, and the influence of organizational and individual behavior, government policies and labor relations. The course will examine the structures and processes that comprise the labor market and the range of theoretical perspectives that can be used to understand its operation. It will rely heavily on applying, and critically appraising, the various perspectives from the field of economics, integrated with other approaches. Its scope will include analyzing the level and types of employee compensation, employment opportunities, labor force participation, work and non-work time, earnings inequality, work-life conflict, etc. It also examines how labor markets, employers and workers are affected by interventions such as government regulatory policy, labor unions, discrimination, and technological advancement. Each unit will focus on an issue within labor markets, and how it may be analyzed in a rigorous way, -the individual's decision to participate in the labor force and how much time to devote toward paid work as opposed to leisure, studying and family; - the individual and employer decision to invest in their own "human capital" (employees' skills) via payment of training and higher education; - the employer's demand for labor resources in both the short-run and long-run and its determinants such as output demand; - the determination of wages in perfectly competitive or internal labor markets; - the effect of working conditions, such as hazardous or insecure jobs, on pay; - the influence of employee compensation schemes on productivity and turnover; - the effect of labor unions and collective bargaining on levels of pay, productivity, profitability and employment; - the effect of government subsides, taxes, minimum wage, maximum hours and family leave regulations on labor supply and demand, worker earnings and well-being; - the effect of various types of discrimination present in the labor market on gender, race and age earnings differentials; - the influence of the "new economy" (technology, networking) on unemployment and quality of employment (e.g., temporary jobs, work schedules) and income inequality.