ECO2203 Labour Economics

Labour economics is now a well-established, distinct area of specialization within the discipline of economics. The purpose of this course is to provide students encountering labour economics for the first time, yet possessing knowledge of principle economics, with grounding on this specialization. This should enable the student to participate in the discussion of labour market issues from a more informed perspective and will provide them with the confidence to tackle journal articles and research papers in the area. It covers the significant topic areas of labour economics with a combination of pure theory, economic statistics, summaries of important empirical studies and discussions of labour market issues and policies.

Course Objectives

With emphasis placed very much upon providing an accessible survey of the content of labour economics, this course intends to achieve the following objectives; 

• Identifying how the market forces of labour supply and labour demand interact. 
• Demonstrating how that interaction determines wages. 
• Introducing personnel economics as an application of labour economics concepts. 
• Examining the quality of labour and how this may affect the growth performance of economies. 
• Considering trade unions as a labour market institution, 
• Examining the links between output, inflation, productivity and unemployment. 
• Analyzing job search and vacancies and their relationship to unemployment. 

Course Learning Outcomes
At the end of the course, students are expected to demonstrate knowledge, skills and competence in; 

• Derivation of the equilibrium labour demand, supply and wage rate 
• Articulation of principal – agent issues, efficiency wage contracts, wage flexibility and labour market segmentation 
• Demonstration of the emergence, institutional set up and the impact of the trade unions on the economy 
• Identification and explanation the relationship between job search, vacancies and unemployment.