Welcome!
Thank you for your interest in Econ 3200: Labor Economics. This page will help you decide whether to take the course.
Why Econ 3200?
The course is designed to help you:
- Learn how wages are determined.
- Assess whether education pays off.
- Analyze labor market trends and their implications for the future of work.
- Make more informed education and employment decisions.
- Learn how firms motivate workers.
- Analyze how immigration affects workers and firms.
- Develop data analysis skills valued by employers.
Basic course info
Econ 3200 is a 3-credit course. In-person class meetings will be held Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 11:00 - 11:50 a.m. The course satisfies the International Perspectives requirement and the Social Sciences General Education requirement. The prerequisite is Econ 1010 or Econ 1020.
Who should take Econ 3200?
The course is valuable if you are interested in business, human resources, consulting, public policy, analytics, law, and related fields. Students taking Econ 3200 often include business and economics majors, political science majors, and data analytics majors.
The course is particularly valuable for engineering majors. Engineering teaches you how technology works. Labor economics teaches you how people, incentives, and labor markets work. Whether your goal is to manage teams, launch a startup, understand the impact of AI, or make informed decisions about workforce issues, Econ 3200 will provide you with tools that complement and extend your technical training.
What will you learn?
You will learn to use economic theory to explain important outcomes such as wages, employment, hours worked, labor force participation, and unemployment. You will study both worker and employer decision-making and examine how public policies and labor market institutions affect economic outcomes. Key topics include labor demand, labor supply, unemployment, education and human capital, worker compensation and incentives, and immigration.
What skills will you gain?
By the end of the course, you should be able to:
- Explain why wages differ across workers.
- Analyze unemployment using competing economic theories.
- Evaluate whether education and training investments pay off.
- Assess the labor market effects of immigration.
- Apply economic models to real-world labor market issues.
- Locate and analyze labor market data from major public datasets.
- Create and interpret graphs.
- Communicate evidence-based conclusions using economic reasoning and data.
How can Econ 3200 help your career?
Econ 3200 develops analytical, quantitative, and evidence-based decision-making skills that are useful in many professions. You will gain experience interpreting data, evaluating policy questions, and understanding workforce-related issues that frequently arise in business, government, nonprofit organizations, and legal settings. In addition, topics such as compensation systems, workforce incentives, returns to education, labor market trends, and the future of work have direct relevance to career planning and management decisions.
Is Econ 3200 relevant and interesting?
In student ratings of teaching, past students have highlighted the course's real-world relevance and practical applications. Several students reported enjoying the connections between course content and real-world situations, learning about worker incentives, and hearing from guest speakers.
Course workload
You will complete about one homework assignment per course module, take short in-class quizzes, and take checkpoint exams throughout the semester and the final exam at the end. Homework is submitted through Canvas. You should expect to spend several hours per week outside class on readings, homework, and exam preparation.
How difficult is Econ 3200?
The course uses economic theory, data analysis, and some math modeling, but one student described it in ratings of teaching as containing "just the right amount of math." Another student commented that the course was easy to follow.
You should be comfortable with setting up and solving basic algebraic equations and working with graphs. While knowledge of calculus may be helpful, it is not necessary to succeed in the course.
What data will you work with?
You will learn to locate and analyze real-world data from important publicly available sources, including:
- Current Population Survey (CPS);
- American Community Survey (ACS);
- Decennial Census data.
You will use these data to investigate labor market trends and evaluate economic questions using evidence.
You will also learn how to use the IPUMS platform to construct data extracts from CPS, ACS, and Decennial Census for analysis.
About course instructor
My name is Alex Zhylyevskyy. I am an associate professor in the Department of Economics. I have taught in various capacities for over 25 years, including nearly 20 years at ISU. My teaching portfolio includes undergraduate courses in labor economics and principles of macroeconomics, as well as graduate courses in labor economics and econometrics. You can learn more about me by visiting my homepage.
Additional questions?
Please email the course instructor (Alex Zhylyevskyy) at oz9a@iastate.edu with any questions.