LECTURE PLAN: ECON 4715 LABOUR ECONOMICS
Time and Place:
Thursday 10:15 – 12, auditorium 6 ( First lecture: August 23 - Last lecture: Nov. 22)
No lectures in week 40
Language:
English
Lecturer:
Erling Barth
E-mail: Erling.Barth@econ.uio.no
Web-page: http://www.socialresearch.no/staff/ebarth
Course description and reading list:
See: www.uio.no/studier/emner/sv/oekonomi/ECON4715/
Mandatory paper:
Problem set distributed 29.9
Hand in 10.10
Tentative lecture plan:
The following topics will be covered in the lectures. The week numbers given in
parenthesis for each topic are tentative. Exercises and the compulsory paper will be
given in the seminars The reading list is a suggestion from the lecturer and may cover
parts of the reading list for the course, only.
1. Introduction and Labour Market Flows (week 34)
Why labour economics?
Survey of the course and remarks on the reading list.
Extensive and intensive margin
Job Flows and Worker Flows
Competetive and non-competetive wage differences
Topic I: Frictions
2. Job Search Theory (week 35)
The basic search model
The asset equation
On the job-search
C&Z chapter 3:1.1, 1.2.2.
3. The Matching Model (week 36 & 39)
Transaction costs and frictions
The Beveridge curve
Labour market equilibrium
C&Z chapter 9:3
4. Equilibrium Search Model (week 41)
Wage setting and the Diamond’s critique
Labour Market Equilibrium
Endogenous Wage Distribution
C&Z chapter 3:2.1
Topic III: Information
6. Contracts, risk sharing and incentives (week 42)
Risk Sharing
Incentives in the presence of verifiable results
Pay for performance
C&Z chapter 6:1-3
7. Efficiency wages (week 42 - Friday)
Incentives in the absence of verifiable results
Equlibrium unemployment
Wage Distribution
C&Z chapter 6:4.2, 4.4
Topic II: Labour Demand
5. Labour demand (week 43)
Labour demand in the short run
Long run demand
The elasticity of substitution
Monopsony
C&Z chapter 4: 1.1-1.4, 2.1, 2.2
Bhaskar Manning and To
Topic IV: Collective Bargaining
8. Unions and Collective Bargaining (week 45)
Unions
Collective bargaining
The right to manage model
Equilibrium unemployment
Wage distribution
C&Z chapter 7: 1-4
9. Coordination in bargaining (week 46)
Bargaining institutions
Coordination in bargaining
C&Z chapter 12:4
Moene and Wallerstein
10. Some policy issues (week 47)
Minimum wage
Employment protection
Institutions and performance
C&Z chapter 12: 1, 2, 4 , 5
Moene and Wallerstein