Modern Labor Economics Theory and Public Policy.

Description based upon print version of record.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Brief Contents -- Contents -- Preface -- CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION -- The Labor Market -- Labor Economics: Some Basic Concepts -- Positive Economics -- The Models and Predictions of Positive Economics -- Normative Economics -- Normative Economics and Government Policy -- Efficiency versus Equity -- Plan of the Text -- Example 1.1 Positive Economics: What Does It Mean to "Understand" Behavior? -- Review Questions -- Problems -- Selected Readings.

Appendix 1A Statistical Testing of Labor Market Hypotheses -- CHAPTER 2 OVERVIEW OF THE LABOR MARKET -- The Labor Market: Definitions, Facts, and Trends -- The Labor Force and Unemployment -- Industries and Occupations: Adapting to Change -- The Earnings of Labor -- How the Labor Market Works -- The Demand for Labor -- The Supply of Labor -- The Determination of the Wage -- Applications of the Theory -- Who Is Underpaid and Who Is Overpaid? -- Unemployment and Responses to Technological Change across Countries -- Example 2.1 Real Wages across Countries and Time: Big Macs per Hour Worked.

Example 2.2 The Black Death and the Wages of Labor -- Example 2.3 Forced Labor in Colonial Mozambique -- Empirical Study Pay Levels and the Supply of Military Officers: Obtaining Sample Variation from Cross-Section Data -- Review Questions -- Problems -- Selected Readings -- CHAPTER 3 THE DEMAND FOR LABOR -- Profit Maximization -- Marginal Income from an Additional Unit of Input -- Marginal Expense of an Added Input -- The Short-Run Demand for Labor When Both Product and Labor Markets Are Competitive -- A Critical Assumption: Declining MPL.

From Profit Maximization to Labor Demand -- The Demand for Labor in Competitive Markets When Other Inputs Can Be Varied -- Labor Demand in the Long Run -- More Than Two Inputs -- Labor Demand When the Product Market Is Not Competitive -- Maximizing Monopoly Profits -- Do Monopolies Pay Higher Wages? -- Policy Application: The Labor Market Effects of Employer Payroll Taxes and Wage Subsidies -- Who Bears the Burden of a Payroll Tax? -- Employment Subsidies as a Device to Help the Poor.

Example 3.1 The Marginal Revenue Product of College Football Stars -- Example 3.2 Coal Mining Wages and Capital Substitution -- Empirical Study Do Women Pay for Employer-Funded Maternity Benefits? Using Cross-Section Data Over Time to Analyze "Differences in Differences" -- Review Questions -- Problems -- Selected Readings -- Appendix 3A Graphical Derivation of a Firm's Labor Demand Curve -- CHAPTER 4 LABOR DEMAND ELASTICITIES -- The Own-Wage Elasticity of Demand -- The Hicks-Marshall Laws of Derived Demand.

Estimates of Own-Wage Labor Demand Elasticities.