In this course, we will look into important trends and
phenomena characterizing the world of today. A first area of interest will
concern the notable changes in population growth rates and longevity that took
place over the past decades, their diverse geographical distribution across the
globe, as well as the challenges posed by such changes and the projected future
path of population size. We will also devote attention to several labor market
topics, namely discrimination, migration and female labor force participation. What
is discrimination in Economics? Why would employers discriminate among candidate
employees? What methods are there to detect discriminatory behaviour? Regarding
migration, we will look into theoretically based explanations of the effects of
migrants on the labor market opportunities of natives and, importantly, at what
the data say about those effects. Whether or not migrants contribute to lower
wages and higher unemployment rates of natives is one of the main topics of
interest. Finally, we will discuss the enormous change in the labor force
participation rate of women in the past century and reasons underlying that
occurrence.
- Enseignant·e: Ana Fernandes