Labor supply
Study participation, hours and job choice under wages, taxes, household constraints and non-wage job attributes.
Side 240Side Studies / Research
Subject
Labor Economics
Purpose
Work and earnings studied through labor supply, human capital, matching, bargaining, firms, institutions and wage inequality.
Structure
05 movesSystem mapV0
Components → constraints → flows → control → failure
Treat labor markets as matching and bargaining systems.
Labor economics connects worker choices and skills to employer demand, institutions and firm-specific wage setting rather than assuming a single anonymous market.
Human capital
Estimate returns to education, experience and training while separating selection from causal productivity effects.
Search & matching
Model unemployment and vacancies as outcomes of costly search and imperfect matching rather than simple excess supply.
Firms & wage setting
Examine monopsony, bargaining and firm heterogeneity as sources of wage dispersion among similar workers.
Institutions & inequality
Study minimum wages, unions, discrimination and labor regulation through both direct and equilibrium effects.
Keep the boundaries visible.
wage ≠ worker productivity
unemployment ≠ voluntary nonwork
education premium ≠ causal return
Questions that organize the Side.
How much wage dispersion reflects worker skill versus firm-specific pay?
When can a minimum wage raise employment under employer market power?
Which designs isolate discrimination from unobserved productivity differences?
What should carry weight here?
Administrative matched employer-worker data, natural experiments and transparent identification strategies are especially valuable; selection into jobs and education is central.