03977 - Labour Economics

Academic Year 2010/2011

  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in Law and Economics (cod. 0892)

Learning outcomes

The aim of this course is to study the labor market and the agents that interact in it, making students capable to follow the socio-political debate and the scientific literature (theoretical and applied) that analyses the economic functioning of this market.

Course contents

Main part

1.   Labor supply: how workers acquire the endowments with which they enter the labor market; what they decide to offer and at which price.

2.   Labor demand: how much labor and of which kind firms decide to demand.

3.   How and at which price demand and supply meet if:

·       markets are competitive or not;

·       labor force is homogeneous or heterogeneous;

·       there is uncertainty;

·       information is symmetric and/or incomplete;

·       there are institutions that interfere with the functioning of the market

4.   How workers and entrepreneurs interact within the firm.

5.   How and why worker and firms may decide to interrupt their relationship.

Monographic parts

6.   Migration

7.   Gender discrimination

8.   Globalization

Readings/Bibliography

Students may want to use the textbook: Brucchi Luchino, “Economia del Lavoro”, Il Mulino.

Assessment methods

The exam is written. A student can divide it into a mid term exam and a final exam immediately after the end of classes, or take it as a single exam later on after the end of classes.

Teaching tools

Lecture notes (in Italian) can be downloaded from http://www2.dse.unibo.it/ichino/#lect.notes

Links to further information

http://www2.dse.unibo.it/ichino/#lect.notes

Office hours

See the website of Andrea Carlo Michele Ichino