Online Text and Notes in Labour Economics, Employment and Unemployment

This is a free and open set of course materials released by the Saylor Foundation, an educational charitye. It consists of eleven units, each with readings and other web resources.

This is a collection of presentations given at various CBI (Confederation of British Industry) events made available via SlideShare. They have been authored by members of the CBI or invited speakers from HM Treasury, companies and other organisations. They cover topics such as public procurement, climate change, energy policy, pensions etc. In common with other resources available on SlideShare they are embeddable in other websites, some are downloadable and registered users can comment on the presentations.

The Transformaton of macroeconomic policy and research is Prescott's 2004 Nobel Prize lecture. It sets out the method and significance of micro-founded, forward-looking, dynamic-equilibrium models as originated by Kydland, Prescott, Lucas and others, and widely adopted as cheap computing power becomes available. Assess the impact on use of macro models for policymaking, with particular attention to time consistency and credible commitment. It is complemented by the shorter, more empirical 'Quantitative Aggregate Theory' by co-laureate Finn Kydland, available from the same site. Both in video as well as text form.

This sample chapter from the authors' textbook, Modern Labor Economics, is a 34-page PDF document. Headings include "The Determinants of Worker Mobility", "Policy Application: Restricting Immigration" and "Employee Turnover and Job Matching". It has been produced by Ronald G. Ehrenberg and Robert S. Smith of Cornell Unversity.

Industrial organization: a strategic approach is an online version of a text book written by Canadian economists Jeffrey Church and Roger Ware, in 2000. This intermediate level text on industrial economics covers, monopolies, oligopoly pricing, strategic behaviour, issues in antitrust economics and issues in regulatory economics. It is available as a single PDF download of over 1000 pages.

Economic Growth and Government Policy seminar collates papers on economic growth, and its links to education and other aspects of government policy, presented to a HM Treasury seminar in October 2000 and downloadable as PDF files. Subjects include 'What does modern growth analysis say about government policy towards growth?' (Richard Freeman), 'Public policies and aggregate economic performance' (Tim Besley), 'Supply side policy and British relative economic decline' (Nick Crafts), 'The benefits of education' (Jon Temple). Papers are relatively short, avoid technical presentation, and summarise the state of the art of 'new' growth theory circa 2000.

Notes from twenty lectures of a 2006 course are available here as ordinary Web pages with graphics, streaming narrated slideshows, or as PowerPoint presentations. Topics are: Labor Markets; Short-run Labor Demand; Long-run Labor Demand; Labor Demand Elasticities; Nonwage Labor Costs; Labor Supply; Compensating Wage Differentials; Economics of Education; Worker Mobility; and Gender, Race, and Ethnicity.

This is a converted slide show, with 39 short pages including graphs and tables. An index down the side of each page shows all the subheadings.