Spring 2015
Instructors Tuomas Pekkarinen (VATT and Aalto) and Marko Terviö (Aalto)
Lectures Mon & Tue 10-12 at Economicum, Sh 1.
Students are required to write two referee reports, which are due in class on March 10th.
Details at the end of this syllabus.
Each report counts for 1/3 of the course credit.
The final exam is on March 25th. It is an open book exam. It counts for 1/3 of the course credit.
Weiss, Yoram. "Work and Leisure: A History of Ideas." Journal of Labor Economics 27.1 (2009): 1-20.
Cahuc, Pierre, and Andre Zylberberg, Chapter 1 in "Labor Economics." MIT Press, 2004.
Blundell, Richard, and Thomas MaCurdy. "Labor supply: A review of alternative approaches." Handbook of Labor Economics 3 (1999): 1559-1695.
*Fehr, Ernst, and Lorenz Goette. "Do workers work more if wages are high? Evidence from a randomized field experiment." American Economic Review (2007): 298-317.
Goette, Lorenz, David Huffman, and Ernst Fehr. "Loss aversion and labor supply." Journal of the European Economic Association 2.2-3 (2004): 216-228.
Heckman, James. "What has been learned about labor supply in the past twenty years?" American Economic Review (1993): 116-121.
Heckman, James. "Shadow prices, market wages, and labor supply." Econometrica (1974): 679-694.
Imai, Susumu, and Michael P. Keane. "Intertemporal labor supply and human capital accumulation." International Economic Review 45.2 (2004): 601-641.
*Imbens, Guido W., Donald B. Rubin, and Bruce I. Sacerdote. "Estimating the Effect of Unearned Income on Labor Earnings, Savings, and Consumption: Evidence from a Survey of Lottery Players." American Economic Review 91.4 (2001): 778-794.
Keane, Michael P., and Kenneth I. Wolpin. "The career decisions of young men." Journal of Political Economy 105.3 (1997): 473-522.
Mroz, Thomas A. "The sensitivity of an empirical model of married women's hours of work to economic and statistical assumptions." Econometrica (1987): 765-799.
Blundell, Richard, Alan Duncan, and Costas Meghir. "Estimating labor supply responses using tax reforms." Econometrica (1998): 827-861.
*Card, David, and Dean R. Hyslop. "Estimating the Effects of a Time Limited Earnings Subsidy for Welfare Leavers." Econometrica 73.6 (2005): 1723-1770.
Chetty, Raj, John N. Friedman, Soren Leth-Petersen, Torben Heien Nielsen, and Tore Olsen. "Active vs. Passive Decisions and Crowd-Out in Retirement Savings Accounts: Evidence from Denmark." Quarterly Journal of Economics (2014).
Eissa, Nada, and Jeffrey B. Liebman. "Labor supply response to the earned income tax credit." Quarterly Journal 0f Economics 111.2 (1996): 605-637.
Keane, Michael P. "Labor supply and taxes: A survey." Journal of Economic Literature 49.4 (2011): 961-1075.
*Meghir, Costas, and David Phillips. "Labour Supply and Taxes." The Mirrlees Review. Dimensions of Tax Design (2010): 202-274.
Saez, Emmanuel. "Do taxpayers bunch at kink points?" American Economic Journal: Economic Policy (2010): 180-212.
*Altonji, Joseph G., Anthony A. Smith, and Ivan Vidangos. "Modeling earnings dynamics." Econometrica 81, no. 4 (2013): 1395-1454.
*Ben-Porath, Yoram. "The Production of Human Capital Over the Life Cycle." Journal of Political Economy 75, no. 4-1 (1967): 352-365.
Farber, Henry, and Robert Gibbons. "Learning and Wage Dynamics." Quarterly Journal of Economics 111, (1996): 107-147.
MaCurdy, Thomas. "An Empirical Model of Labor Supply in a Life-Cycle Setting." Journal of Political Economy 89, no. 6 (1981): 1059-1085.
Meghir, Costas, and Luigi Pistaferri. "Earnings, Consumption and Life Cycle Choices." Chapter 9 in The Handbook of Labor Economics, Vol. 4B, Edited by David Card and Orley Ashenfelter. Elsevier, 2011.
Stock, James H., and David A. Wise. "Pensions, the Option Value of Work, and Retirement." Econometrica 58, no. 5 (1990): 1151-1180.
*Card, David. "Estimating the return to schooling: Progress on some persistent econometric problems." Econometrica 69.5 (2001): 1127-1160.
*Angrist, Joshua D., and Alan B. Krueger. "Does Compulsory School Attendance Affect Schooling and Earnings?" Quarterly Journal of Economics 106.4 (1991): 979-1014.
*Angrist, Joshua D., Guido W. Imbens, and Donald B. Rubin. "Identification of causal effects using instrumental variables." Journal of the American Statistical Association 91.434 (1996): 444-455.
Carneiro, Pedro, and James J. Heckman. "The Evidence on Credit Constraints in Post Secondary Schooling." Economic Journal 112.482 (2002): 705-734.
Oreopoulos, Philip. "Estimating average and local average treatment effects of education when compulsory schooling laws really matter." American Economic Review (2006): 152-175.
*Acemoglu, Daron, and Stephen Pischke. "Beyond Becker: Training in Imperfect Labor Markets." Economic Journal 109, no. 453 (1999): F112-142.
*Gibbons, Robert, and Michael Waldman. "Careers in Organizations: Theory and Evidence." Chapter 36 in The Handbook of Labor Economics, Vol. 3B, Edited by Orley C. Ashenfelter and David Card. Elsevier, 1999.
Jovanovic, Boyan. "Job Matching and the Theory of Turnover." Journal of Political Economy 87, no. 5 (1979): 972-990.
Kuruscu, Burhanettin. "Training and Lifetime Income." American Economic Review, (2006): 832-846.
Pallais, Amanda. "Inefficient Hiring in Entry-Level Labor Markets." American Economic Review 104, (2014): 3565-3599.
Rosen, Sherwin. "Learning and experience in the labor market." Journal of Human Resources 7, no.3 (1972): 326-342.
Terviö, Marko. "Superstars and Mediocrities: Market Failure in the Discovery of Talent." Review of Economic Studies 76, no. 2 (2009): 829-850.
DiNardo, John Enrico, and David S. Lee. "Economic Impacts of New Unionization On Private Sector Employers: 1984-2001." Quarterly Journal of Economics 119, no. 4 (2004): 1383-1441.
Grout, Paul A. "Investment and wages in the absence of binding contracts: A Nash bargaining approach." Econometrica 52, no. 2 (1984): 449-60.
*Lindbeck, Assar, and Dennis J. Snower. "Insiders versus outsiders." Journal of Economic Perspectives (2001): 165-188.
*Manning, Alan. "Imperfect Competition in the Labor Market." Chapter 11 in The Handbook of Labor Economics, Vol. 4B, Edited by David Card and Orley Ashenfelter. Elsevier, 2011.
Matsudaira, Jordan D. "Monopsony in the low-wage labor market? Evidence from minimum nurse staffing regulations." Review of Economics and Statistics 96, no. 1 (2014): 92-102.
Angrist, Joshua D., and Victor Lavy. "Using Maimonides' Rule to Estimate the Effect of Class Size on Scholastic Achievement." Quarterly Journal of Economics 114.2 (1999): 533-575.
Chetty, Raj, John N. Friedman, Nathaniel Hilger, Emmanuel Saez, Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, and Danny Yagan. "How Does Your Kindergarten Classroom Affect Your Earnings? Evidence from Project STAR." Quarterly Journal of Economics 126.4 (2011): 1593-1660.
Fredriksson, Peter, Björn öckert, and Hessel Oosterbeek. "Long-term effects of class size." Quarterly Journal of Economics 128.1 (2013): 249-285.
Hanushek, Eric A. "The economics of schooling: Production and efficiency in public schools." Journal of Economic Literature (1986): 1141-1177.
Krueger, Alan B. "Experimental Estimates of Education Production Functions." Quarterly Journal of Economics 114.2 (1999): 497-532.
*Lazear, Edward. "Educational Production." Quarterly Journal of Economics 116.3 (2001): 777-803.
*Todd, Petra E., and Kenneth I. Wolpin. "On the specification and estimation of the production function for cognitive achievement." Economic Journal 113.485 (2003): F3-F33.
*Heckman, James J., and Stefano Mosso. "The Economics of Human Development and Social Mobility." Annual Review of Economics (2014).
*Heckman, James, Rodrigo Pinto, and Peter Savelyev. "Understanding the Mechanisms through Which an Influential Early Childhood Program Boosted Adult Outcomes." American Economic Review 103.6 (2013): 2052-86.
Kerr, Sari Pekkala, Tuomas Pekkarinen, and Roope Uusitalo. "School tracking and development of cognitive skills." Journal of Labor Economics 31.3 (2013): 577-602.
Meghir, Costas, and Mårten Palme. "Educational reform, ability, and family background." American Economic Review (2005): 414-424.
Pekkarinen, Tuomas, Roope Uusitalo, and Sari Kerr. "School tracking and intergenerational income mobility: Evidence from the Finnish comprehensive school reform." Journal of Public Economics 93.7 (2009): 965-973.
Angrist, Joshua D., and William N. Evans. "Children and Their Parents' Labor Supply: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Family Size." American Economic Review 88.3 (1998): 450-477.
Bertrand, Marianne, Jessica Pan, and Emir Kamenica. "Gender identity and relative income within households." Quarterly Journal of Economics, 130.2 (2015): forthcoming [also NBER Working paper no. 19023].
*Chiappori, Pierre-Andre. "Collective labor supply and welfare." Journal of Political Economy (1992): 437-467.
Chiappori, Pierre Andre, Bernard Fortin, and Guy Lacroix. "Marriage market, divorce legislation, and household labor supply." Journal of Political Economy 110.1 (2002): 37-72.
*Hotz, V. Joseph, Jacob Alex Klerman, and Robert J. Willis. "The economics of fertility in developed countries." Handbook of Population and Family Economics 1. Part 1 (1997): 275-347.
Autor, David H. "Skills, education, and the rise of earnings inequality among the 'other 99 percent'." Science 344, no. 6186 (2014): 843-851.
*Autor, David H., Lawrence F. Katz, and Melissa S. Kearney. "The Polarization of the US Labor Market." American Economic Review Papers & Proceedings (2006): 189-194. [See also NBER Working Paper no. 11986.]
Autor, David H., and David Dorn. "The Growth of Low-Skill Service Jobs and the Polarization of the U.S. Labor Market." American Economic Review 103 (2013) 1553-1597.
DiNardo, John, Nicole M. Fortin, and Thomas Lemieux. "Labor Market Institutions and the Distribution of Wages, 1973-1992: A Semiparametric Approach." Econometrica (1996): 1001-1044.
*Goos, Maarten, Alan Manning, and Anna Salomons. "Explaining Job Polarization: Routine-Biased Technological Change and Offshoring." American Economic Review 104, no. 8 (2014): 2509-2526.
Gordon, Robert J., and Ian Dew Becker. "Controversies about the Rise of American Inequality: A Survey." NBER Working Paper no. 13982, (2008).
Lemieux, Thomas , W. Bentley MacLeod, and Daniel Parent. "Performance Pay and Wage Inequality." Quarterly Journal of Economics 124, no. 1 (2009): 1-49.
Neal, Derek , and Sherwin Rosen. "Theories of the Distribution of Earnings." Chapter 7 in The Handbook of Income Distribution, Vol. 1, Edited by Anthony B. Atkinson and François Bourguignon. Elsevier, 2000.
Roine, Jesper, and Daniel Waldenström. "Long-Run Trends in the Distribution of Income and Wealth." Chapter 7 in The Handbook of Income Distribution, Vol. 2, Edited by Anthony B. Atkinson and François Bourguignon. Elsevier, 2015.
Rosen, Sherwin. "The Economics of Superstars." American Economic Review 77, no. 5 (1981): 845-858.
*Becker, Gary, and Nigel Tomes. "Human Capital and the Rise and Fall of Families." Journal of Labor Economics 4, (1986): S1-S39.
Björklund, Anders, Mikael Lindahl, and Erik Plug. "The Origins of Intergenerational Associations: Lessons from Swedish Adoption Data." Quarterly Journal of Economics (2006): 999-1028.
Black, Sandra E., and Paul J. Devereux. "Recent Developments in Intergenerational Mobility." Chapter 16 in The Handbook of Labor Economics, Vol. 4B, Edited by David Card and Orley Ashenfelter. Elsevier, 2011.
Chetty, Raj, Nathaniel Hendren, Patrick Kline, and Emmanuel Saez. "Where Is the Land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States." Quarterly Journal of Economics 129(4): 1553-1623, 2014.
Farber, Henry S. "Mobility and stability: The dynamics of job change in labor markets." Chapter 37 in The Handbook of Labor Economics, Vol. 3B, Edited by Orley C. Ashenfelter and David Card. Elsevier, 1999.
Groes, Fane, Philipp Kircher, and Iourii Manovskii. "The U-Shapes of Occupational Mobility." Review of Economic Studies, (forthcoming).
Kambourov, Gueorgui and Iourii Manovskii. "Occupational Specificity of Human Capital." International Economic Review 50, no. 1 (2009): 63-115.
*Kopczuk, Wojciech, Emmanuel Saez, and Jae Song. "Earnings Inequality and Mobility in the United States: Evidence From Social Security Data Since 1937." Quarterly Journal of Economics 125, no. 1 (2010): 91-128.
Lefgren, Lars, Matthew J. Lindquist, and David Sims. "Rich Dad, Smart Dad: Decomposing the Intergenerational Transmission of Income." Journal of Political Economy 120, no. 2 (2012): 268-303.
Topel, Robert, and Michael Ward. "Job Mobility and the Careers of Young Men." Quarterly Journal of Economics 107, no. 2 (1992): 439-479.
Autor, David, David Dorn, Gordon H. Hanson, and Jae Song. "Untangling Trade and Technology: Evidence from Local Labour Markets." Quarterly Journal of Economics 129, no. 4 (2014), 1799-1860.
*Costinot, Arnaud, and Jonathan Vogel. "Assignment Models of International Trade." NBER Working Paper no. 20585, (2014). Forthcoming in the Annual Review of Economics 2015.
Dornbusch, Rudiger, Stanley Fischer, and Paul A. Samuelson. "Comparative Advantage, Trade, and Payments in a Ricardian Model with a Continuum of Goods." American Economic Review (1977): 823-839.
Johnson, George, and Frank Stafford. "The Labor Market Implications of International Trade." Chapter 34 in The Handbook of Labor Economics, Vol. 3B, Edited by Orley C. Ashenfelter and David Card. Elsevier, 1999.
*Moretti, Enrico. "Local Labor Markets." Chapter 14 in The Handbook of Labor Economics, Vol. 4B, Edited by David Card and Orley Ashenfelter. Elsevier, 2011.
Acemoglu, Daron. "Technical Change, Inequality, and the Labor Market." Journal of Economic Literature 40, no. 1 (2002): 7-72.
*Acemoglu, Daron, and David Autor. "Skills, Tasks and Technologies: Implications for Employment and Earnings." Chapter 12 in The Handbook of Labor Economics, Vol. 4B, Edited by David Card and Orley Ashenfelter. Elsevier, 2011.
Bresnahan, Timothy F., Erik Brynjolfsson, and Lorin M. Hitt. "Information Technology, Workplace Organization, and the Demand for Skilled Labor: Firm-Level Evidence." Quarterly Journal of Economics 117, (2002): 339-376.
Goldin, Claudia and Lawrence F. Katz. "The Origins of Technology-Skill Complementarity." Quarterly Journal of Economics 113, no. 3 (1998): 693-732.
Hornstein, Andreas, Per Krusell, and Giovanni L. Violante. "The Effects of Technical Change on Labor Market Inequalities." Chapter 12 in The Handbook of Economic Growth, Vol. 1B, Edited by Philippe Aghion and Steven N. Durlauf. Elsevier, 2005.
*Young, Alwyn. "Structural Transformation, the Mismeasurement of Productivity Growth, and the Cost Disease of Services." American Economic Review 104, no. 11 (2014): 3635-3667.
Borjas, George (1985): Assimilation, Changes in Cohort Quality, and the Earnings of Immigrants, Journal of Labor Economics 3(4): 463-489
Borjas, George (1999): The Economic Analysis of Immigration. Handbook of Labor Economics 3(A): 1697--1760. Elsevier.
Borjas, George (2003): The Labor Demand Curve Is Downward Sloping: Reexamining the Impact of Immigration on the Labor Market, Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(4): 1335-1374.
Card, David (1990): The Impact of the Mariel Boatlift on the Miami Labor Market, Industrial and Labor Relations Review 43(2): 245-257.
Friedberg, Rachel M. (2001): The Impact of Mass Migration on the Israeli Labor Market, Quarterly Journal of Economics 116(4): 1373-1408.
*Hanson, Gordon (2009): The Economic Consequences of International Migration, Annual Review of Economics 1: 179-208
Ottaviano, G.I.P., Giovanni Peri and Greg Wright (forthcoming): Immigration, Offshoring and American Jobs, American Economic Review
*Sarvimäki, Matti and Kari Hämäläinen (forthcoming): Integrating Immigrants: The Impact of Restructuring ALMP, Journal of Labor Economics
Aguiar, Mark, Erik Hurst, and Loukas Karabarbounis. "Recent Developments in the Economics of Time Use." Annual Review of Economics 4, (2012): 373-397.
Altonji, Joseph G., Erica Blom, and Costas Meghir. "Heterogeneity in Human Capital Investments: High School Curriculum, College Major, and Careers." Annual Review of Economics 4, (2012): 185-223.
Angrist, Joshua, and Jorn-Steffen Pischke. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion." Princeton University Press, 2008.
Autor, David H. "The 'Task Approach' to Labor Markets: An Overview." Journal for Labour Market Research 46, no. 3. (2013): 185-199.
Bloom, Nicholas, and John Van Reenen. "Human Resource Management and Productivity." Chapter 19 in The Handbook of Labor Economics, Vol. 4B, Edited by David Card and Orley Ashenfelter. Elsevier, 2011.
Cahuc, Pierre, and Andre Zylberberg, "Labor Economics." MIT Press, 2004.
Claudia Goldin, and Lawrence F. Katz. "The Race between Education and Technology." Belknap Press, 2010. See also NBER working paper no. 12984 (2007).
Heckman, James, and Alan Krueger. "Inequality in America: What Role for Human Capital Policies?" MIT Press, 2004.
Lentz, Rasmus, and Dale T. Mortensen. "Labor Market Models of Worker and Firm Heterogeneity." Annual Review of Economics 2, (2010): 577-602.
Lindbeck, Assar, and Dennis J. Snower. "The Insider-Outsider Theory of Employment and Unemployment," MIT Press, 1988.
List, John A., and Imran Rasul. "Field Experiments in Labor Economics." Chapter 2 in The Handbook of Labor Economics, Vol. 4A, Edited by David Card and Orley Ashenfelter. Elsevier, 2011.
Manning, Alan. "Monopsony in Motion: Imperfect Competition in Labor Markets." Princeton University Press, 2005.
Oyer, Paul, and Scott Schaefer. "Personnel Economics: Hiring and Incentives." Chapter 20 in The Handbook of Labor Economics, Vol. 4B, Edited by David Card and Orley Ashenfelter. Elsevier, 2011.
For report #1 pick any paper from the list below. For report #2 pick any working paper since 2010 from CEPR, IZA, or NBER that has not yet been published in a journal. You can also propose an unpublished working paper dated since 2010 that is not part of these series, but in that case ask one of the instructors to pre-approve it. The report should be about 3-4 printed pages long, and under no circumstances should it be longer than 5 pages. For general advice on writing referee reports in economics, see Chapter 3 in William Thomson's "A Guide for the Young Economist," MIT Press (2001) or Chapter 4 in the 2011 edition. This is a book that you should have on your shelf.
Beaudry, Paul, David A. Green, and Benjamin M. Sand. "The Great Reversal in the Demand for Skill and Cognitive Tasks." NBER Working Paper no. 18901, (2013).
Farber, Henry S. "Why You Can't Find a Taxi in the Rain and Other Labor Supply Lessons from Cab Drivers." NBER Working Paper no. 20604, (2014).
Fredriksson, Peter, Björn Öckert, and Hessel Oosterbeek. "Inside the Black Box of Class Size: Mechanisms, Behavioral Responses, and Social Background." IZA Working Paper, (2014).
Kirkeboen, Lars, Edwin Leuven, and Magne Mogstad. "Field of Study, Earnings, and Self-Selection." NBER Working Paper no. 20816, (2014).
Lundborg, Petter, Erik Plug, and Astrid Würtz Rasmussen. "Fertility Effects on Female Labor Supply: IV Evidence from IVF Treatments." IZA Working Paper, (2014).
Handbook of Labor Economics at ScienceDirect.
Code and Data for the Social Sciences: A Practitioner's Guide by Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro.
Family economics by Martin Browning, Pierre-Andre Chiappori, and Yoram Weiss.