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Labour, Income and Growth in the Global Economy - ECON2107
 Graduation group

   
   
 
Course Outline: ECON2107 Course Outline
 
 
Campus: Kensington Campus
 
 
Career: Undergraduate
 
 
Units of Credit: 6
 
 
EFTSL: 0.12500 (more info)
 
 
Indicative Contact Hours per Week: 3
 
 
Enrolment Requirements:
 
 
Prerequisite: ECON1101 or PECO1000 or 36UOC in Arts and Social Science
 
 
CSS Contribution Charge:Band 3 (more info)
 
   
 
Further Information: See Class Timetable
 
  

Description

The gap between rich and poor countries has grown over the last century. A hundred years ago the richest nation was 11 times wealthier than the poorest. Now it is 50 times. The labour markets are increasingly seen as pivotal in the fight against poverty. However, what is known about rich countries’ labour markets is not necessarily applicable to labour markets in less rich countries. For example, while the unemployment rate is a well accepted indicator of labour market performance in developed countries, the unemployment rate is scarcely relevant in economies where people cannot afford to be unemployed.

These considerations raise the issue of how we can understand labour markets in developing countries, how they compare with labour market in developed nations and how they perform in the global economy.

The objectives of the new subject are:
  • To understand the importance of trade and technology on wages, income levels and employment in developed and developing countries
  • To expose students to notions of income convergence or rather income divergence, which are often central in recent theories of economics growth
  • To empirically address the importance of structural change in development with a focus on human resources and the labour markets
  • To investigate the relationship of complementarity/substitution between domestic investment in technology and international technology transfer from rich countries, the world’s creators of new technology)
  • To address the issue of labour standards and how foreign direct investments and technology shape the quality of labour markets outcomes

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