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

Nick Bloom, Labor Topics, Spring 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

Nick Bloom, Labor Topics, Spring 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

Nick Bloom, Labor Topics, Spring 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)

Nick Bloom, Labor Topics, Spring 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)

Nick Bloom, Labor Topics, Spring OTHER ISSUES Times: 11:00 – 12:50, Monday and Wednesday, in Econ 106 Office hours – just /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!

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