Assignment:
Final Project: Policy Analysis and Literature Assessment
As a final exam, you will submit a policy analysis and literature assessment.
Specifically, your task is to choose a policy that is of interest to you that is related to a labor topic we've covered in class. For example, this could be an education-related policy, a policy related to immigration, labor income taxation, labor supply, etc. However, something more tangential is fine as well, assuming you can apply the concepts we covered in class. [Example: we covered human capital investment, but did not cover health, which is one form of human capital. If you wanted to a cover a policy that affects individuals' health, e.g., the ACA subsidy or a cigarette tax, I would have no objections.]
The policy you choose could be an existing policy or one that you think could be implemented (such as paid parental leave in the U.S., like in Homework 3). You MUST discuss the policy you have in mind with me and receive my explicit approval to focus on it for this final project. You can do this during my office hours, during a scheduled appointment, during a class break, or immediately after class.
Once you choose your policy, you should proceed as follows.
1. Discuss briefly why such a policy should be under consideration and, if applicable, what kind of market failures necessitate it.
2. Write a brief literature review about what has been written by academic economists on the policy or the issues addressed by the policy, referencing four or five of the key studies on the topic. You are welcome (and encouraged) to do this by drawing on existing literature reviews, if available, such as those published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives or the Journal of Economic Literature.
3. Pick one study (or two, maximum) that you find the most credible, and discuss in detail why you believe it is credible, and what the limitations are. If possible, you should make a recommendation about what the optimal way to design the policy would be, given what we know from existing studies.
Please write up your analysis in no more than three pages. This will require you to be concise. You will also give a 15 minute presentation to the class. We will then jointly analyze the issue for about 5 minutes in what will hopefully be an engaging discussion!
[Hints: You may find that your topic has been extensively covered and that you have many studies to choose from. In that case, it may help to focus mostly on studies that are published in the most prestigious journals.
Top journals in the profession are considered to be the following: American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, and Econometrica. Top field journals that cover labor topics include Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Public Policy, and American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. Of course, there are many other excellent journals as well.
Alternatively, it may be the case that little research is available on your policy of interest. If the policy has never been analyzed directly, you will have to conduct your analysis based either on studies of related policies or on studies of behaviors/outcomes that would be affected by your policy.]
Readings:
Fathers' parental leave-taking, childcare involvement and mothers' labor market participation
By Marcus Tamm