Labour economics, or labor economics, seeks to understand the functioning and dynamics of the markets for wage labour. Labour is a commodity that is supplied by labourers, usually in exchange for a wage paid by demanding firms. Because these labourers exist as parts of a social, institutional, or political system, labour economics must also account for social, cultural and political variables.
A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation by the end of the 20th century. Because minimum wages increase the cost of labor, companies often try to avoid minimum wage laws by using gig workers, by moving labor to locations with lower or nonexistent minimum wages, or by automating job functions. Minimum wage policies can vary significantly between countries or even within a country, with different regions, sectors, or age groups having their own minimum wage rates. These variations are often influenced by factors such as the cost of living, regional economic conditions, and industry-specific factors.
Dale Thomas Mortensen was an American economist, a professor at Northwestern University, and a winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
Sir Christopher Antoniou Pissarides is a Cypriot economist. He is Regius Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, and Professor of European Studies at the University of Cyprus. His research focuses on macroeconomics, labour economics, economic growth, and economic policy. In 2010, along with Peter Diamond and Dale Mortensen, he received the Nobel Prize in Economics, "for their analysis of markets with theory of search frictions."
The IZA – Institute of Labor Economics, until 2016 referred to as the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), is a private, independent economic research institute and academic network focused on the analysis of global labor markets and headquartered in Bonn, Germany.
Employment protection legislation (EPL) includes all types of employment protection measures, whether grounded primarily in legislation, court rulings, collectively bargained conditions of employment, or customary practice. The term is common among circles of economists. Employment protection refers both to regulations concerning hiring and firing.
Étienne Wasmer is a French professor and economist currently holding a Professorship at New York University in Abu Dhabi. Wasmer mainly focuses on the fields of labor economics, job search theory, discrimination and human capital. He teaches microeconomics and labor economics.
Jacques H. Drèze was a Belgian economist noted for his contributions to economic theory, econometrics, and economic policy as well as for his leadership in the economics profession. Drèze was the first President of the European Economic Association in 1986 and was the President of the Econometric Society in 1970.
Disequilibrium macroeconomics is a tradition of research centered on the role of disequilibrium in economics. This approach is also known as non-Walrasian theory, equilibrium with rationing, the non-market clearing approach, and non-tâtonnement theory. Early work in the area was done by Don Patinkin, Robert W. Clower, and Axel Leijonhufvud. Their work was formalized into general disequilibrium models, which were very influential in the 1970s. American economists had mostly abandoned these models by the late 1970s, but French economists continued work in the tradition and developed fixprice models.
Alan Manning is a British economist and professor of economics at the London School of Economics.
Joseph Gerard Altonji is an American economist and the Thomas DeWitt Cuyler Professor of Economics at Yale University. His fields of interest include macroeconomics and applied econometrics and in particular labour economics, being ranked as one of the foremost labour economists worldwide. In 2018, his contributions to the analysis of labour supply, family economics and discrimination were rewarded with the IZA Prize in Labor Economics.
Gary Sheldon Fields is an American economist, the John P. Windmuller Professor of International and Comparative Labor and Professor of Economics at Cornell University. Fields has performed extensive research in labor economics and development economics, in particular labor mobility, which was rewarded with the IZA Prize in Labor Economics in 2014.
Thomas Lemieux is a Canadian economist and professor at the University of British Columbia.
Haroon Bhorat is Professor of Economics and Director of the Development Policy Research Unit (DPRU) at the University of Cape Town. His area of research has concentrated on labour economics and poverty/income distribution mainly in his native South Africa, and recently, been expanded to other parts of Africa.
Ragui A. Assaad is an Egyptian economist and Professor of Planning and Public Affairs at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. His research interests include labour economics, inequality and the economics of education. He ranks among the most prominent economists of Egypt.
Christian Dustmann, FBA, is a German economist who currently serves as Professor of Economics at the Department of Economics of University College London. There, he also works as Director of the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM), which he helped found. Dustmann belongs to the world's foremost labour economists and migration scholars.
Giorgio Brunello is an Italian economist and Professor of Economics at the University of Padova. His research interests include education, migration, training, unemployment and wages. He ranks among the foremost labour economists in Italy.
Jan C. van Ours is a Dutch economist and currently Professor of Applied Economics at the Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR). He belongs to the most highly cited economists in the Netherlands and is the 1996 winner of the Hicks-Tinbergen Award.
Yann Algan is a French economist, Associate Dean of Pre-experience Programs and Professor of Economics at HEC Paris. He was previously and until 2021 a Professor of Economics of Sciences Po, where he was dean of the School of Public Affairs. His research interests include the digital economy, social capital and well-being. In 2009, Yann Algan was awarded the Prize of the Best Young Economist of France for his contributions to economics in France.
Francis Kramarz is a French economist who works as Professor at the École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique (ENSAE), where he has been directing the Center for Research in Economics and Statistics (CREST). He is one of the leading labour economists in France.
