Workers and Firms in the Modern Economy (MSB275)

Content

The course will cover the following topics, of which the order may vary from year to year.

Workers: individual trade-offs between work and leisure; labor supply over the life cycle and retirement decisions; returns to training and education, human capital model, skills and occupational choice.

Firms and labor: minimum wages; automatization; wage-setting and rent-sharing.

Firms and taxation: value added taxes (VAT) and prices; taxation on profits and investment decisions; taxes and management in multinational firms.

Economy: agglomeration economies and market power; business cycles; imperfect information and principal/agent problem.

For many of the topics, theory will be contrasted by empirical evidence.

Learning outcome

Knowledge: Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:

• develop and apply economic models to understand when and why workers enter & exit the labor market
• internalize how decision-making around training and education affect long-run economic opportunities
• understand how firms decide on their use of labor and capital in order to produce
• explain how taxation both affects firms' decisions, and reveals how firms work
• identify factors that affect the allocation of talent in the economy

Skills: Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:

• understand, and apply evidence from, empirical economic papers in their professional interests
• demonstrate abilities to deliver clear and effective presentations

Required prerequisite knowledge

Recommended prerequisites

Exam

Course teacher(s)

Course coordinator:

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Open for

Course assessment

Literature