The University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill
(oertel@email.unc.edu)
Meeting times and location: TR 11:00- 12:15, 309 Gardner Hall
Office hours: Tue 10-11, Thurs 3:30-4:30 and by appointment.
Office: Hanes 300-D.
Notice
on registration:
This
course is intended for students whose major is not economics. Majors are advised to take 194 instead. You can’t receive credit for both 190 and
194. Economics 100 is a prerequisite
for this course. Do not take this
class before completing Economics 100.
Course Outline and Reading List
Course
description:
In
this course we will apply the tools you acquired in Econ 100 or 101 to the
context of decisions made in the labor market.
That is, we will analyze these decisions as choices made by individuals
seeking to do the best they can, given the constraints they face.
On
the individual worker’s side, we will look at the decisions of
whether, how much, and when to work; how much education to acquire; whether or
not to move…
On
the firm’s side, we will discuss the decisions that
profit-maximizing firms make regarding how many and what kinds of workers to
hire.
We
will also discuss policy topics, including minimum wages, earnings
inequality and organized labor.
Textbook:
“Labor
Economics” by George Borjas (2nd edition, Irwin-McGraw-Hill, 2000) [“GB” on the reading list]
This
book has a website offering
study questions. Known typos
in the book are listed on another page.
David
Macpherson is the author of another text.
In a recent class, I used some of the power point slides (from chapter
10, 11, and 13) that can be accessed on his
website.
Assessment:
Grades
are based on two midterms, a final exam, and a small number of quizzes.
Quizzes 15% TBA
Midterm
1 25% February
13 (Thursday), in class
Midterm
2 25% March
27 (Thursday), in class
Final
Exam 35% May
6 (Tuesday), 9am
First
Midterm Materials:
Answers to Quiz 1 Practice Questions for the 1st
midterm Brief answers to practice questions
Old 1st midterm. Brief answers to the old 1st midterm
(without graphs) Answers to
Midterm 1
Second
Midterm Materials:
Answers to Quiz 2 Practice Questions for the 2nd
midterm Brief answers to practice questions
Old 2nd midterm Brief answers to the
old 2nd midterm (without graphs) Answers to Midterm 2
Final Exam Materials: NEW
Answers to Quiz 3 Practice Questions for the Final Brief answers to practice questions
Old Final Brief answers to the old Final (without
graphs)
Quizzes
cover recent class material and/or readings.
There will be an opportunity to drop the lowest quiz grade; in turn, I
do not give make-up quizzes.
There
are no make-up midterms. If a midterm
is missed for a good reason (i.e. health) that was cleared in advance with the
instructor then its weight will be re-assigned to the next midterm (if
applicable) and to the final exam.
Number
grades are translated into letter grades according to a fairly standard scale.
90-92%:
A- 93-100%: A
80-82%:
B- 83-86%: B 87-89%: B+
70-72%:
C- 73-76%: C 77-79%: C+
60-66%:
D 67-69%: D+
0-59%:
F