Two - Year Master Degree in Economics

Take students closer to contemporary researhc in labor

Students will be in a position to present and discuss an advanced  research paper in labor

Standard Class

 

The course is in two parts and offers an overview of two approaches to labor market analysis. The first part covers search and matching models with (mainly) a macroeconomic perspective.  The first part relies on some numerical simulations and knowledge of Python in the way used for the Numerical Economics Course is useful.

Labor economics has been an important discipline in terms of applying and developing empirical techniques. As a result, the second part of the course is going to focus on these empirical methods and their application to the major topics studied by labor economists.

First Part.

There are two textbook references for the first part:

Pissarides C.A. (2000) Equilibrium Unemployment Theory, MIT Press. Hereafter P2000

Petrosky Nadeau Wasmer (2017) Labor, Credit and Goods Market: The Macroeconomic of  Search and Unemployment.  Hereafter PNW2017

1.The basic labor market,

PNW2017, Chapter 1

Pissarides, 1985, Short Run equilibrium dynamics of unemployment, vacancies, and real wages, American Economic Review, 75(4): 676-90

Mortensen D.T. and Pissarides, C.A. (1994) Job creation and destruction in the theory of unemployment, The Review of Economic Studies, 61(3): 397-415

2. Efficiency and Competitive Search

PNW2017, Chapter 3

Moen, 1997 Competitive Search Equilibrium Journal of Political Economy 105(2):385-411

Benoit Julien, Kircher Philippe, Wright Randy and Veroniace GUerrieri (2018) Directed Search: A Guided Tour, unpublished.

3. Business Cycle Properties

PNW2017, Chapter 2

Shimer (2005) The cyclical behavior of equilibrium unemployment and vacancies, American Economic Review, 95(1): 25-49.

Ljungkvist Lars and Sargent T. (2017) The Fundamental Surplus, American Economic Review, 2017, 107(9): 2630/2665

4. Credit and labor market frictions

PNW2017, Chapter 5 and 6

Boeri Garibaldi Moen (2018) Mortensen and Pissarides meet Holmstrom and Tirole, Labour Economics, 2018.

5. Temporary Contracts and Duality

Garibaldi, P.  Violante, G.L. (2005)

Garibaldi Berton (2012)

Cahuc, Pierre, Olivier Charlot and Franck Malherbet Explaining the Spread of Temporary Jobs and its Impact on labor turnover, International Economic Review, vol 57(2), pp533-572, May 2016.

Boeri Garibaldi Moen (2017) Inside Severance Pay, Journal of Public Economics

 

Second Part.

There are two textbook references for the second part:

J.D. Angrist and J.S. Pischke, Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion, Princeton University Press, 2009. Hereafter MHE.

9. Acemoglu and D. Autor, Lectures in Labor Economics, chapters 1-2 and 8-9. Hereafter LLE.

 

1. Returns to Schooling – Instrumental Variables

MHE, sections 4.1, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6.4

30. Card, “The Causal Effect of Education on Earnings,” in The Handbook of Labor Economics, volume IIIA, chapter 30.

Angrist, J.D. and A. Krueger, “Does Compulsory Schooling Attendance Affect Schooling and Earnings?,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. CVI, November 1991, 979-1014.

 

2. Returns to Schooling – Fixed Effects

MHE, section 5.1

1173. Ashenfelter and A.B. Krueger, “Estimates of the Economic Return to Schooling from a New Sample of Twins,” American Economic Review, Vol. 84, December 1994, 1157-1173.

 

3. Compulsory Schooling Laws – Differences in Differences

MHE, section 5.2

59. Acemoglu and J.D. Angrist, “How Large Are Human-Capital Externalities? Evidence from Compulsory Schooling Laws,” NBER Macroeconomics Annual, Vol.15, 2000, 9-59.

 

4. School Resources – Experiments

MHE chapter 2

532. B. Krueger “Experimental Estimates of Education Production Functions,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 114, May 1999, 497-532.

 

5. Signalling and School Resources – Regression Discontinuity Design

MHE chapter 6

575. Angrist and V. Lavy, “Using Maimonides' Rule to Estimate The Effect of Class Size on Scholastic Achievement,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 114, May 1999, 533-575.

 

 

6. On-the-job training
7. Becker, Human Capital, 3rd Edition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993, section III.1
8. Acemoglu, J.S. Pischke, “The Structure of Wages and Investment in General Training,” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 107, June 1999, 539-572.

 

7. Government Training Programs

MHE, section 3.3

R.J. Lalonde, “Evaluating the Econometric Evaluations of Training Programs with Experimental Data.” American Economic Review, vol. 76, 1986, 604-620.

84. Burtless, “The Case for Randomized Field Trials in Economic and Policy Research,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 63-84.

J.J. Heckman and J.A. Smith, “Assessing the Case for Social Experiments,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 9, 1995, 85-110.

1062. Dehejia and S. Wahba, “Causal Effects in Non-Experimental Studies: Re-Evaluating the Evaluation of Training Programs,” Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 94, December 1999, 1053-1062.

 

There are two textbook references for the first part:

Pissarides C.A. (2000) Equilibrium Unemployment Theory, MIT Press. Hereafter P2000

Petrosky Nadeau Wasmer (2017) Labor, Credit and Goods Market: The Macroeconomic of  Search and Unemployment.  Hereafter PNW2017

 

There are two textbook references for the second part:

J.D. Angrist and J.S. Pischke, Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion, Princeton University Press, 2009. Hereafter MHE.

D. Acemoglu and D. Autor, Lectures in Labor Economics, chapters 1-2 and 8-9. Hereafter LLE