Seminar: Applied Labor Economics

This seminar provides students with the opportunity to develop in-depth knowledge of a topic of their own choice within labor economics and to conduct an independent empirical analysis. The central objective of the course is to design, implement, and critically evaluate an empirical research project using modern applied microeconometric methods.

The seminar paper may, for example, involve the examination and replication of empirical findings from existing studies published in leading economics journals. Alternatively, students may formulate their own concrete research question within labor economics and develop an original empirical analysis addressing that question.

Core topics include labor supply and labor demand, unemployment and job search, human capital formation, discrimination, and labor market policies. Students are also encouraged to explore topics at the intersection of labor economics and related fields, such as health economics, education economics, behavioral economics, public economics, or organizational economics. Empirical analyses should rely on state-of-the-art microeconometric and/or experimental techniques.

Students are expected to engage deeply with the relevant academic literature and underlying economic concepts. They should be able to critically assess the research designs of existing studies and, where appropriate, develop and justify their own empirical strategies. The seminar further emphasizes the interpretation of empirical results and the discussion of potential policy implications.

For the empirical component, students may replicate and reassess existing estimations, conduct robustness and sensitivity analyses, or re-estimate models using alternative data sources or specifications.

Examples of suitable datasets for empirical analysis will be discussed during the introductory meeting. Many leading journals require authors to make replication data publicly available through online archives. These include general-interest and field journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Review, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Journal of Political Economy, and Review of Economic Studies, as well as leading field journals including the Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Applied Econometrics, and the Review of Economics and Statistics. The publicly available replication files provided by these journals can serve as a natural starting point for seminar projects.

The course is especially well suited for students with access to administrative data or other rich datasets. It also serves as preparation for a master thesis based on independent empirical research. Students are encouraged to start exploring potential seminar topics and relevant literature before the beginning of the course to facilitate an early start to their empirical project.