Interactive Syllabus

[you must read the syllabus]

Introduction

Course objectives. The course is designed to provide an introduction to the theory and practice of contemporary labor economics. The course develops an understanding of the determinants of wage rates and employment levels in labor markets. The tools of neoclassical economics will be used to examine contemporary policy issues, such as minimum wage laws, labor market discrimination, employment training programs, and the economic impact of unions. The first part of the course describes labor supply decisions made by rational households, labor demand decisions made by profit-maximizing firms, and compensating wage differentials under the assumption of competitive markets. The second part of the course is empirical and includes the analysis of wage differentials and human capital investments. Attention is given to wage incentive schemes, discrimination, wage bargaining, and unemployment.

Learning outcomes. At the end of the course, students should be able to: - explain the motivations and behaviors of individual agents in the labor market, - evaluate the impact of government policy and labor market regulations on the functioning of labor markets, - describe economic consequences of labor unions, - explain factors behind the wage differentials, - explain push and pull factors of labor migration, - explain the determinants of unemployment, - explain factors influencing decisions about human capital investments.

Study abroad. The course can be completed if you are studying abroad (e.g. Erasmus). From abroad, you can take the two extra activities online (like all the other students do), but you cannot take the voluntary mid-term online (I will not allow online examination). You can take only the Standard cumulative exam after your return to Czechia. Please contact me if you are studying abroad. See below further details.

Contacts and meetings with students

My email is luca.fumarco@econ.muni.cz

My room is on the fifth floor, room 523, on the left corridor when you exit either of the two central lifts.

I do receive students in my office, from 14,00 to 16,00, on any lesson day, without the need to set a meeting (i.e. do not contact me to ask whether you can come: just come). However, if you want to meet on any other day and time, please contact me via email, and let's set up a meeting.

You can send me a message anytime and I usually answer within a couple of days. However, sometimes it takes time or I simply miss your message (also, if you write to me with your private email, the email provider might automagically dump it in the spam / junk email by mistake). So, if my answer takes too long to reach you, please send me a soft reminder via email; never take the lack of a response as a deliberate act.

Topics schedule

1. Introduction to Labor Economics -- Read this on your own
2. Labor Supply, February 19th
3. Labor Demand, February 26th
   
4. Labor Market Equilibrium, March 4th
5. Compensating Wage Differentials, March 11th
6. Human Capital, March 18th
   
7. Wage Structure, March 25th -- Deadline Extra activity 1, on lessons 1 to 6
8. Easter Monday, April 1st
   
9. Mid-term, April 8th, on lessons 1 to 6
   
10. Labor Mobility, April 15th
    
11. Labor Market Discrimination, April 22nd
    
12. Labor Unions, April 29th
    
13. Incentive pay, May 6th 
    
14. Unemployment, May 13th -- Deadline extra activity 2, on lessons 7 to 13

This topics schedule is suggestive of the course progress through Borjas' book (see the literature below).

There could be two additional guest lecturers that will be announced in due time.

Literature

BORJAS, George J. Labor economics. Eight edition. New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2020. xvi, 478. ISBN 9781260565522. info

Evaluation scale

Students will be evaluated based on three extra activities, one mid-term exam, and the final exam.

Extra activities, the mid-term exam, and the final cumulative exam will be weighted based on the following percentages.

In determining your final letter grade, I will cumulate your points through extra activities and exams. I will then convert this final percentage grade to a final letter grade as follows:

• A: (88; 100]
• B: (81; 88]
• C: (74; 81]
• D: (67; 74]
• E: [60; 67]
• F: [0, 60)

To avoid a subjective evaluation, I do not round grades up if you are close to a cut-off or otherwise tweak grades. Please do not ask me to do this. Please note that I do not use a curve to grade your assignments or exams.

However, there is an objective way to round up the grades of students who are on the edge of passing: if your final grade is [55, 59], you have the right to conduct one reparation assignment to allow you to get 60 (more details on this below).

There could be guest lectures. Gust lectures' lessons will roughly proceed in this way: during about three-fourths of the time, the guest lecturer will discuss the content of the lecture slides, while in the reminder one-fourth of the time, the guest lecturer will discuss a study related to the course . This part of the lecture might be part of the exam--if will tell you if this is the case. Regardless, these lessons are really cool and you should definitely attend!

Attendance - not graded [corrected 22/2/2024]

Attendance is not mandatory, but it is warmly recommended. To make the 1h50' more bearable, we will have a 10' break in the middle of the lesson.

Studies have shown that students learn better when they attend in-person classes. Direct personalized learning experiences motivate students and allow them to stay focused and avoid lagging behind. In other words, it is in your own interest to attend: it increases the learning experience and satisfaction with the course. Moreover, lessons are the best moment when to ask questions about material that you have not understood.

Although the slides are available now, and you have the book, I encourage you to take notes during the lessons. Studies have shown this is a very effective way to learn. Since the material is already available, I expect that before coming to the lesson you will have already read "at least" the slides for that lesson (e.g. on March 12th, you read the slides to be discussed in class on March 13th).

There is no option to attend online. However, if you had to miss a lecture for important reasons (e.g. for medical reasons), you could watch the video from 2021 hybrid lectures. These lectures are not accessible to everyone, they will be made accessible only to those students who need them. I will make these recordings automatically available to everybody, a few days after each lesson.

There is one additional reason for attending: there is a strong positive correlation between questions I ask in in-class activities and questions asked in the exams (see below).

In-class activities - not graded

In-class activities will be planned in due course and depend on time availability. These activities are not graded and they are meant to help you learn and make me understand whether something is unclear to you. Typically, these activities are in-class oral questions from me to you on what is discussed on that same day. Additionally, at the end of each lesson and conditionally on having enough time, we will use either Socrative (room name: FUMARCO) or Mentimeter  (the lecture-specific code will be given in class). Please sign up on both websites, it is free, and download the app, which is available on the smartphone and laptop.

The Mentimeter app for android is here: https://mentimeter.en.softonic.com/android , or in alternative here: https://mentimeter.en.aptoide.com/app. I do not know whether it works on Apple, sorry (I do not have an Apple and no student has ever told me anything about it) There are other available sources (e.g. Filehippo, APKFollow), but I have never used them. Last but not least, you can use Mentimeter from your browser -- Apple users need to take this way because the app is not available for them. [added 20/2/2024]

There is a positive correlation between the questions that I ask in class and the likelihood that similar questions will appear in the exams.

Extra activities - graded

Extra activity 1 and 2 will be planned in due course. For example, they could be online open-book take-home assignments. These activates will be based on the material mentioned in the Topics schedule, unless stated otherwise by me (in class or via email).

Extra activities 1 and 2 do not give you a pass/fail, but an actual score that adds to your final grade.

There is no resit of extra activities and, if you miss them, the final exam will have a heavier weight on your final score (e.g. if you miss Extra activity 1, your final exam will be worth 55 or 90 points -- depending on whether you passed the mid-term). ["will have a heavier weight" does not mean "will be longer / with more questions", but just that it will count more]

These activities have two purposes: spur you to study little by little and spread the risk over multiple activities.

Exams - graded

There are three types of exams, each of which has multiple-choice questions with exactly one correct answer.

• Mid-term exam: 0-35 points

• Lighter Final cumulative exam: 0-45 points (+10 points if you miss either one of the two extra activities, or +20 if you miss both extra activities)

• Standard Final cumulative exam: 0-80 points (+10 points if you miss either one of the two extra activities, or +20 if you miss both extra activities)

The exact assessment dates and their content will be announced in due course, although the Mid-term will be (ideally) on April 8th and will be based on lessons 1 to 6 (see the topics schedule). Both Mid-term and Final cumulative exams will be closed book, closed notes exams. If you are abroad, you cannot take the mid-term (I will not allow online examination). You can take only the Standard cumulative exam after your return to Czechia.

The Mid-term will include questions on material covered by the textbook from lessons 1 to 6; it will be considered passed with at least 60% of correct answers [specified in class, during the mid-term, on 8/4/2024]. There is no resit of the mid-term exam: those people who fail it or do not take it will have to take a Standard Final cumulative exam that covers lessons 1 to 14 and that is worth 80% of your final grade.

The Lighter Final cumulative exam will include mostly questions on material from lessons 7 to 14 and some questions on material from weeks 1 to 6. This exam is a couple of questions shorter than the standard one [added 19/2/2024]

THE NUMBER OF QUESTIONS IS THE SAME FOR STANDARD AND LIGHTER FINAL CUMULATIVE EXAM, THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM STEMS FROM THE QUANTITY OF QUESTIONS FROM THE FIRST PART OF THE COURSE.

Exams rules. Both Mid-term and Final cumulative exams will be closed book, closed notes exams. NO CELLPHONE IS ALLOWED; YOU HAVE TO BRING YOUR CALCULATOR. ADDITIONAL RULES: NO TALKING, NO LOOKING IN THE DIRECTION OF OTHER PEOPLE'S EXAM. THE FIRST TIME YOU BREAK ANY OF THESE RULES, I GIVE YOU A PUBLIC WARNING, BUT ON THE SECOND TIME I WILL TAKE YOUR EXAM AND YOU WILL GET AN F. If you have to ask something from a classmate (e.g., some water, a tissue), you first rise your hand and tell me that you have to do so. NO CHEAT SHEET OR BOOK IS ALLOWED either on your desk, on yourself, or in your bag. If I see a cheat sheet or a book, I WILL IMMEDIATELY TAKE YOUR EXAM AND YOU WILL GET AN F. [I understand if you bring book or papers to revise the material before the exam starts--I used to do it too; in that case, please leave them next to my desk after you enter the room and remember to collect them after you have handed in the exam] 

The above rules are not exhaustive, they apply to any unauthorized tool, aid, and communication device, or other disruptions of objectivity of credit test.

Academic dishonesty is taken seriously, see the link below.

!! Your wrong answers do not reduce your grade, they simply count as a 0; thus, if you are not sure about what to answer, just pick one of the answers: do not be tempted to break any of the above rules !!

Reparation assignment - graded

If your final grade is [55, 59] (i.e. the grade that combines the results from the three Extra activities + the Mid-term + the Final cumulative exam) and so you are going to fail on the edge, you can choose to conduct one reparation assignment which allows you to get 60--if passed, instead of resitting the final cumulative exam.

The reparation assignment is a take-home assignment, composed of multiple-choice questions on the entire program of the course. In order to transform your final grade into a 60, you have to respond correctly to at least 60% of the questions.

There is no resit of the reparation assignment. If you fail it, you retake the Final cumulative exam (either the Lighter or the Stadard one, depending on how you performed in your mid-term).

Exceptions?

Long story short, the answer is: NO. Unless they are formally supported by MUNI (e.g., you are an Erasmus student abroad) or motivated through standard university channels (e.g., doctor certificate deposited on IS).

You cannot ask me to bend the rules in any sort of way; I can and must allow only formally justified exceptions mentioned in the syllabus, which in turn is based on MUNI rules. (e.g., I cannot justify you skipping an in-class activity due to sickness, if this is not supported by formal medical evidence deposited in IS; I cannot justify it for working reasons either; I cannot justify it for any sort of family reason).

Exams and assignments - could banks contain errors?

Please note that your exams and assignments in this course are usually multiple-choice quizzes that come from standardized test banks from one of the most famous labour economics books in the world. Mistakes are very rare and there is no space for arbitrary decisions on whether an answer is correct or not.

The policy of zero tolerance for academic dishonesty will be strictly applied.