EC32210 - WAGES AND EMPLOYMENT

Module Identifier

EC32210

Module Title

WAGES AND EMPLOYMENT

Academic Year

2007/2008

Co-ordinator

Mr Oliver Marnet

Semester

Semester 2

Pre-Requisite

(EC10120 and EC10320) or ( EC10510 and EC10610)

Course delivery

Lecture

12 Hours.

Seminars / Tutorials

5 Hours.

Assessment

Assessment Type	Assessment Length/Details	Proportion
Semester Exam	1.5 Hours	80%
Semester Assessment		20%

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of this module students should be able to:
Through lecture presentation, seminar discussion and reading (see below) students should grasp a working understanding of how economists explain the determination of wage levels and employment levels through the interaction of supply and demand for labour. Students should also become familiar with some of the extensions and complications to this - in particular being able to understand how 'impositions' such as minimum wage laws or 'imperfections' such as sex and race discrimination or segmentation of workers affect outcomes. Students will gain an understanding of the following topics:

The basis of labour supply and its applications

Long-run influences on labour supply, especially that of education and training

The basis of labour demand and its applications

The matching of workers to jobs in the labour market

Wage determination: incomplete pay adjustment and pay rules such as minimum wages

Wage inequalities between workers and the importance of compensating differentials

Internal and segmented labour markets

Pay and hiring discrimination

In the tutorials, in particular, we will focus on contemporary policy issues, in particular considering European social legislation of various kinds and its impact on the labour market. Students should, by the end of the module, be able to critically assess the impact of these.

Aims

The module aims to present the economic study of the labour market and issues in the economics of human resources to students on degree schemes in economics or business-related subjects. Given that human resources are unlike other goods and services this presents particular issues and problems. The module will primarily analyse 'micro' aspects of the determination of wages and employment, rather than 'macro' aspects. While the latter are important, since they affect policy goals such as the alleviation of unemployment, and the reduction of wage inflationary pressure these are covered in more detail in other modules. As with other markets the labour market can be thought of as possessing suppliers (workers or organised groups of workers) and demanders (employers/firms). The module will look at each of these in turn and examine the important influences on them and then analyse how they fit together to determine observed levels of wages and employment.

Reading Lists

Books
** Recommended Text
R F Elliott (1991) Labor Economics: A Comparative Text McGraw Hill
N Adnett (1996) European Labour Markets Longman
P Milgrom and J Roberts (1992) Economics, Organization and Management Prentice Hall
R K Filer, D S Hamermesh and A E Rees The Economics of Work and Pay 6th. Harper Collins

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 6