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The course will introduce a range of topics in labor economics, including theories of labor supply and labor demand, labor market equilibrium, unemployment, investments in education and training, discrimination, patterns of inequality, and technological progress and inequality. After working through theory, we will discuss applications to important public policy issues including minimum wage and employment protection laws, international trade and labor markets, active labor market policies (both motivations for and performance of different strategies for helping unemployed workers find jobs), social insurance systems and their influence on the labor market, and retirement decisions and the labor market in aging economies. Applications to policy questions will provide insight into how labor supply and labor demand decisions differ across the institutional and economic contexts of lower-, middle- and upper-income economies. Taught by John Giles