Ronald G. Ehrenberg Courses

The following are courses that Professor Ehrenberg is currently teaching or has taught recently. Please click on the appropriate link, if applicable, to obtain a course syllabus/reading list and other course material.

- ILRLE648 - Economic Analysis of the University ( Fall 2008) - Seeks to illustrate the complexity of decision making in a nonprofit organization and to show how microeconomic analysis in general, and labor market analysis in particular, can be usefully applied to analyze resource allocation decisions at universities. Among the topics covered are financial aid, tuition, admissions policies, endowment policies, faculty salary determination, the tenure system, mandatory retirement policies, merit pay, affirmative action, comparable worth, collective bargaining, resource allocation across and within departments, undergraduate versus graduate education, research costs, libraries, athletics, and "socially responsible" policies. Lectures and discussions of the extensive readings will be supplemented by presentations by Cornell administrators and outside speakers who have been engaged in university resource allocation decisions or have done research on the subject.

- ILRID 150 - Freshman Colloquium (Fall 2007) - This course is offered to acquaint new freshman students with some of the issues and disciplines in the field of industrial and labor relations, and, establish acquaintanceship among members of the ILR faculty and small, randomly assigned groups of students. The course includes a plant visit and several meetings early in the semester designed to introduce issues encountered in studying the employment relationship.

- ECON 747/ ILRLE 747 (Spring 2003) - A survey of the econometric research on a wide variety of higher education issues. Examples of the issues addressed include public and private funding, financial aid and tuition policies, faculty labor markets and Ph.D. production. While the emphasis is on the American educational system, research from other countries may also be discussed. The goal of this course is to provide students with an up to date treatment of where the literature is, to hone their skills as empirical economists and ability to do independent research and to suggest under-researched areas that they may pursue. Students are assumed to have backgrounds in graduate microeconomic theory and econometrics.

- ILRLE240 - Economics of Wages and Employment (Spring 2007) - Applies the theory and elementary tools of economics to the characteristics and problems of the labor market. Considers both the demand (employer) and supply (employee) sides of the market to gain a deeper understanding of the effects of various government programs and private decisions targeted at the labor market. Topics covered include employment demand, basic compensation determination, education and training, benefits and the structure of compensation, labor-force participation and its relation to household production, occupational choice, migration, labor-market discrimination, and the effects of unions.