Course Objectives
The purpose of the course is to provide
East European economists with further education in the microeconomic analysis
of the restructuring process a transitional economies, with a special emphasis
on labor market adjustment. Currently, there is great interest on the part
of policymakers throughout the region and international organizations on
the design of policies both to facilitate and to cushion the effects of
restructuring, yet rather little research hag addressed the behavioral
and social implications of alternative strategies. The course would provide
a forum to share the methodologies and findings developed by the CEU Economics
Department and Labor Project, which has become a center for research and
data collection in this area, and to develop a wider network of faculty
and scholars cooperating on the investigation of these topics.
Curriculum
While the bulk of the economic literature
on transition is highly descriptive, a significant theoretical literature
has also developed. The biggest gap, and the one which this course seeks
to address, is bringing together well-defined theoretical propositions
with econometric tools and appropriate microdata sets for testing them.
Accordingly, the course will include classes in both theory and in econometrics,
as well as seminars on the empirical implementation of theories on actual
data sets. The theory classes will emphasize institutional economics and
models of mobility and information. The econometrics classes will include
limited dependent variable estimation, hazard functions, duration dependence,
and other techniques appropriate for microdata, particularly involving
qualitative variables. The seminars will include discussions of labor supply,
earnings differentials, Labor market transitions, unemployment, multiple
job holding and second economy activities, managerial behavior, and the
social costs and political economy of transition.
