Jadrian Wooten
Economics Educator
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Labor Economics
Penn State University
Reading List
The blocks below represent topics that are covered in the course each week along with required readings that are assigned to those topics. Students in the course will read two books during the course (New Geography of Jobs and We Wanted Workers), so those chapters may not correspond directly with the topics. The extra reading tends to be more closely tied with class material or serves as a preview for the upcoming lesson.
Students in the class are given PDFs of the reading posted in the course management system. Below, Amazon links to the book are included.
Econ 315 Course Site
02/
Labor Force Characteristics
Cairo, A. (2019). How Charts Work. In: How Charts Lie. WW Norton Co. New York.
New Geography of Jobs: American Rust
03/
Automation & Transformation of the US Economy
Schlosser, E. (2001). Behind the Counter: throughput. in: Fast Food Nation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Bessen, J. (2016, January 19). "The Automation Paradox." The Atlantic.
04/
Minimum Wage & Other Wage Policies
Lowrey, A. (2018). Crummy Jobs. In: Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World. New York: Crown Publishing.
Harford, T. (2017. The Welfare State. In: Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy. New York: Riverhead Books
05/
Time Allocation in the US Labor Force
New Geography of Jobs: Smart Labor: Microchips, Movies, and Multipliers
New Geography of Jobs: The Great Divergence
06/
Government Assistance & Universal Basic Income
New Geography of Jobs: Forces of Attraction
New Geography of Jobs: The Inequality of Mobility and Cost of Living
07/
Causes of Wage Differentials
New Geography of Jobs: Poverty Traps and Sexy Cities
New Geography of Jobs: The New "Human Capital"
08/
Immigration & The Decision to Move
We Wanted Workers: Introduction
We Wanted Workers: Lennon's Utopia
We Wanted Workers: How We Got Here
09/
Monopsony Power
We Wanted Workers: The Self-Selection of Immigrants
We Wanted Workers: Economic Assimilation
We Wanted Workers: The Melting Pot
10/
Training, Education, & Human Capital
Stephens-Davidowitz, S. (2017). All the World's a Lab. in: Everybody Lies.
Levitt, S. & Dubner, S. (2014). "What do King Solomon and David Lee Roth have in common?" In: Think Like a Freak, p. 149 - 161.
11/
Unions & Collective Bargaining
Schlosser, E. (2001). Behind the Counter: detecting lies. in: Fast Food Nation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Vanek Smith, S. and C. Garcia (February 13, 2019) "The Strike That Changed U.S. Labor," NPR Planet Money.
Simon, J. and K. Malone (December 18, 2019) "When Reagan Broke the Unions," NPR Planet Money.
13/
Labor Market Discrimination
Acho, E. (2020). What Do You See When You See Me? Implicit Bias. In: Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man.
Brody, L.. (2017, February 7). "The Big Salary Reveal: 12 Real People Discover What the Pay Gap Looks Like." Glamour.
Vanek Smith, S. and C. Garcia (April 29, 2019). "Where The Gender Pay Gap Is Widest ." NPR Market Place.
14/
Income & Wealth Inequality
We Wanted Workers: The Labor Market Impact
We Wanted Workers: The Economic Benefits
We Wanted Workers: The Fiscal Impact