1. Nick Bloom, Labor Topics, Spring 2010 1 LABOR TOPICS, Spring 2010 Nick Bloom Overview

2. Nick Bloom, Labor Topics, Spring 2010 2 COURSE OVERVIEW There are four things I can teach: Content – i.e. papers, chapters from textbooks Techniques – i.e. estimators, dynamic programming Skills – i.e. presentations, writing papers etc Ideas – i.e. feedback on your research I want to focus more on the last two as these are harder to self-teach. I will focus on more non-structural papers given Luigi’s focus on more structural papers in 246. But this is flexible, so feedback is very useful

3. Nick Bloom, Labor Topics, Spring 2010 3 DRAFT SCHEDULE (1/3) Majority of classes cover topics in two parts: First half – 1 core paper which we all read in advance. One person (nominated in advance) presents and everyone else prepares about a 5 slide discussion. The discussion should focus on: Good stuff – what the paper did well Bad stuff – what the paper didn’t do well Extensions – what you could do extending this Second half – I will summarize about 3 more related papers. You don’t need to read any of these in advance So you only have to read 1 paper in advance – but please read this in detail so we can discuss and deconstruct this

4. Nick Bloom, Labor Topics, Spring 2010 4 DRAFT SCHEDULE (2/3) Two other types of classes: (A) Practical topic sessions: Monday 5 th April – Presentations Monday 19 th April – Stata tips and tricks Monday 26 th April – PhD tips & tricks Monday 17 th May – Refereeing and paper writing (B) Student presentations – you present your research ideas for 20 minutes each (including Q&A) and I’ll give individual feedback after class. No class (I am away for seminars): April 21 st and May 12 th Class dinner on May 10 th (paid for by me)

5. Nick Bloom, Labor Topics, Spring 2010 5 Monday March 29 th : Skill-Biased Technical Change.No class paper (CP) Wednesday March 31 st : Inequality. CP: Lemieux, MacLeod and Parent (QJE, 2009) Monday April 5th: Peer effects + Presentations topic. CP: Mas and Moretti (2008 AER) Wednesday April 7th: Incentives. CP: Bandiera, Barankay and Rasul (2005 and 2007, QJE) Monday April 12 th : Management. CP: Bloom and Van Reenen (2007, QJE) Wednesday April 14th: Family firms. CP: Bennedsen et al. (2007, QJE) Monday April 19 th : Stata tips and tricks. No CP, instead Stata homework Wednesday April 21 st : No class Monday April 26 th : Student presentations Wednesday April 28th: Media Bias + PhD tips and tricks topic. CP: Gentzkow and Shapiro (2010, Econometrica) DRAFT SCHEDULE (3/3) Monday May 3rd: Culture. CP: Guiso, Sapienza and Zingales (2009, QJE) Wednesday May 5th: Technology. CP: Jensen (2008, QJE) Monday May 10th: Experiments in firms. CP: De Mel, McKenzie and Woodruff (2008, QJE) Wednesday May 12th: No class Monday 17th May: Student presentations Wednesday 19th May: Refereeing and paper writing Monday 24th May: Discrimination. CP: Bertrand and Mullainathan (2004, AER) Wednesday 26th May: Productivity. CP: Foster, Haltiwanger and Syversson (2008, AER) Monday 31st May: Knowledge diffusion. CP: Conley and Udry (2010, AER) Wednesday 2nd June: Environment. CP: Chay and Greenstone (2005, JPE)

6. Nick Bloom, Labor Topics, Spring 2010 6 OTHER ISSUES Times: 11:00 – 12:50, Monday and Wednesday, in Econ 106 Office hours – just e-mail/ask me, I’m happy to meet up at any point. Slides – I’ll put all these up after the lecture where necessary Breaks – we’ll have a 5 minute coffee break at 12:00 to 12:05 We will set up a rota to pick this up which I’ll pay for. Food – if you want to bring along lunch you are welcome. But please nothing really smelly (see over) or messy!

7. Nick Bloom, Labor Topics, Spring 2010 7 DurianKFC (whole chicken serving) Curry (especially goat curry)Blue cheese (especially home made) Please no smelly food