Labour Economics
Order Description
Economics 324
Labour Economics
Research Assignment #1
Due Date: End of October
Length: 5 or 6 pages of text, plus relevant charts, tables, diagrams
Topic: For this assignment I want you to research some data relevant to a labour economics problem or phenomenon of your choice. Depending on your topic you might want more straightforward statistical information that illustrates a situation, or you might need to find a more analytical study that has manipulated the statistics to examine how or why something is happening.
I want you to explain your topic (with at least some brief analysis or reference to theory), present the data, and explain or show how the data might enlighten us.
You should use a minimum of two different sources of data. I would also like to see sources that are not too old (say anything published in 2005 or later) – the data can be from an earlier period, but the presentation should be more recent.
Sources: Your text will give you a good idea of what topics fall under labour economics, will have some examples of the kind of numbers you might be looking for, and has extensive bibliographies at the end for each chapter. Might be someplace to start.
Statistics Canada (online through the library or directly) has raw data available on just about anything, and studies on many things as well. Census based studies are a good source
One journal worth a look (and readable) is Canadian Public Policy. (search online) You are free of course to look beyond these, but be a bit leery of some of the sources you find on the internet, particularly those put forward by lobby groups and think tanks..