Notice
- Department of
Economics Web Site:
The Department of Economics maintains a comprehensive web site at
http://econ.tulane.edu/
. This should be your first
stop
for all your economics inquiries. On the web site you will find
information about the major, the faculty, and internet resources in
economics. Other important links are
Econlit
(you are able to download most papers through TU Link from Econlit)
and
Economics
Research
Resource Guide. The
web
site for
this class can be accessed at
http://www.tulane.edu/~msyun/ .
Course
Objectives
- Economic
Literacy: Students who complete this course should understand and be
able to articulate, both orally and in writing, the core economic
principles, concepts and theories that form the foundation
of modern economic analysis and economic research for various
gender issues.
- Economic
Numeracy: Students who complete this
course should
be familiar with the tools, techniques and methods of empirical
economics for gender issues. They should be able to analyze data using
computer applications and should be familiar with regression methods
and other statistical techniques. They should be able to read and
assess general interest articles on gender issues. In addition, they
should be able to understand and evaluate key findings in published
economic research from a wide range of sources including academic
economists, public policy ‘think tanks,’ and
government
agencies.
- Economic
Citizenship: Upon
completion of this course students should be able to apply their
understanding of core concepts and quantitative tools to analyze and
research real world problems and evaluate alternative economic policy
proposals on gender issues.
- The
goal of this course is to explore and understand the similarities and
differences between men and women from economic perspectives.
This course examines, based on basic economic theory and empirical
analysis, how gender differences lead to different economic outcomes
for the sexes, measured in terms of earnings, income, poverty rates,
hours of work, and other standards used by economists to determine
economic well-being. This course also evaluates the effectiveness
of government and corporate policies aimed to improve the
welfare
of women.
Prerequisite:
Economics 101 and 102. These
prerequisites are taken seriously and and you are expected to
have
mastered the
material covered in these courses
.
Office
Hours:
MW 2-3PM or by
appointment. Room: Tilton Hall 310, 862-8356. My
email
address is
msyun@tulane.edu .
Readings: The following should be
available at
the
bookstores:
The
Economics of
Women, Men, and Work
, 6th edition by Francine D. Blau, Marianne A. Ferber, and Anne E.
Winkler, Prentice Hall, 2010.
My organization of the
text is
a bit
different from mine, and I will lecture on some things that are not in
the text. Also, for some topics, my treatment will be different than
that of the text. The
text should be viewed as a complement to the lectures, not a
substitute. You are responsible for the material in the text, the
online study guide, and in the lectures. I make every effort to have
class attendance a necessary (though not sufficient) factor in
performing well on examinations. Note that I have deliberately kept the
amount of reading down. This is because I expect you to read and
thoroughly understand all the material in the text. The lecture outline
below
provides an
approximate correspondence between lecture topics
and readings. Please allocate your time efficiently throughout the
semester. The case studies
contained in the text are to
help you
sort out analytical issues. You will not be tested on the case study
material.
Though I do
not require to
read any additional materials due
to the reasons noted above, students may obtain interesting insights by reading papers,
books and newspapers [the
Wall
Street Journal (http://www.wsj.com),
the Economist
(http://www.economist.com),
the Financial
Times
(http://www.usa.ft.com)
and the New
York Times
(http://www.nytimes.com
)].
Problems
to Work On:
The text
contains a very good set of discussion questions at the end of each
chapter. Some of these questions are extremely difficult. You should
use these to help develop your understanding of the problems of
economics of gender.
Lecture
Topics:
The
following is a list of
lecture
topics. On some I will go into great detail, others I will but mention
in passing. Unless indicated, the Chapters below
include
the
Appendices, especially where noted. The assigned pages represents the
minimum reading you should be doing during the semester.
I will follow
the order below: pace your
reading,
studying and working on problems based on the coverage of the exams, as
indicated below in the section "Examinations".
1. Introduction to the
course
- Review of basic economic
tools
(Chapter 1)
- Historical
perspectives (Chapter 2)
- Goldin,
Claudia,
Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women
, Oxford University Press, 1990
- Regression
(Appendix, Chapter 7)
- Killingsworth,
A
Simple Introduction to Econometrics
- Nisbet
and Vakil, "Some Estimates of Price and Expenditure Elasticities
of Demand for Marijuana Among U.C.L.A. Students," Review
of
Economics and Statistics, 1972,
473-75
2. Early Socialization
and
Education
- Corcoran
and Courant, "Sex-Role Socialization and
Occupational
Segregation: An Exploratory Investigation," Journal
of Post
Keynesian Economics,1987 330-46
- Butcher
and Case, "The Effect of Sibling Sex Composition on Women's
Education and Earnings," Quarterly
Journal of Economics,
1994,
531-63
- Polacheck,
"Sex Differences in College Major," Industrial
and Labor
Relations Review, 1978, 498-508
- Kahn,
"Women in the Economics Porfession," Journal
of Economic
Perspectives , 1995, 193-205
- Dynan
and Rouse, "The Underrepresentation of Women in Economics: A
Study of Undergraduate Economic Students," Journal
of
Economic
Education , 1997, 350-68
3. The Family
4.
Labor Supply
- Chapter 4
- Killingsworth, "Labor
Supply of
Women,"
in Eatwell, Milgate and Newman, eds., The
New Palgrave,
Stockton Press, 1987
- Blau
and Kahn, "Changes in the Labor Supply Behavior of Married Women:
1980-2000," Journal of
Labor Economics, 2007, 393-438
5. Earnings and
Occupational
Status:
Labor Market Discrimination
- Chapters 5-7
- Goldin,
Katz, and Kuziemko, "The Homecoming of American College Women: The
Reversal of the College Gender Gap," Journal
of Economic
Perspectives,
Fall 2006, 133-156
- Malkiel
and Malkiel, "Male-Female Pay Differentials in Professional
Employment," American Economic
Review, 1973, 693-705
- Patrick
McGeehan,
"Wall Street Highflier to Outcast: A Woman's Story," New York Times,
February 10, 2002
- Lisa
Belkin, "The
Opt-Out Revolution," New York Times, October 26, 2003
- Goldin
and Rouse, "Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of "Blind"
Auditions on Female Musicians," American Economic Review, 2000, 715-741
6. Policy: Implications, Tools, Consequences
Evaluation: There are three
examinations.
The following table
summarizes
the time and dates.
| Midterm Exam 1 |
Wednesday, February 23,
2011, in class |
Sections 1,
2 and 3 under lecture
topics
|
25% |
| Midterm Exam 2 |
Monday, April 4,
2011, in class |
Sections 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
and 6 under
lecture topics |
25% |
| Final Exam |
Tuesday, May 3, 2011,
9-Noon (3 hour exam) |
Sections 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
and 6 under lecture topics |
50% |
- Note:
I reserve the right to alter
this schedule during the semester. All exams are cumulative. Of
course, new material covered since the last exam (sections in
bold
) will be emphasized, but you are responsible for all the material.
- Makeup
Policy:
Students who simply
do
not show up for exams should not expect to be given a makeup.
You
should present a valid documentation in order to avoid receiving zero
points on the missing exam.
- Extra-Credit
Policy:
There are no extra-credit
assignments. There is
no
way to ex post
improve your grade on an
examination. Plan to do
well
on the required material.
Some Warnings, Advice
and Hints:
1. If
you are having problems, please
seek
out help early. Come in prepared, having gone over the lectures, text,
and problems in the text. If you have missed any classes, make sure you
have gotten the missed notes from classmates. In cases like this, it
usually pays to get the notes from at least two of your class mates.
2. The
only way to learn it is to keep
going over
it, work the problems in your text, and THINK
about what
you are doing at each step. I suggest that you first read through the
entire book. This will help you to begin to think about this course. Go
over the lectures and think about what problems I raise and what
problems are raised in the book. A good exercise is to pick up the
newspaper and come up with alternative explanations of various
"business" and
"economic" news. Furthermore, let me urge you to read as much of the
material as possible early on in the course. You will find this will
help you develop a perspective on the course material.
3. Do
not wait until after I have
lectured on
something to read the material work on it yourself. Come to class
prepared
!
4. The
emphasis in this class is on
developing your
ability to apply analytical techniques and on your understanding of
fundamental concepts. Exams will emphasize this. They will not test
whether you remember what the balance of trade for the U.S. was in
1978. They will assume you have a complete understanding of the
lectures and text, and will ask you to apply what you have learned to
"new" circumstances.
5. The
course material builds on
earlier work. It is
essential that you master every part of the material. I will integrate
the material as we go along, but you will be ahead of the game
if you make extended efforts to learn and integrate it yourself.