Graduate School der Universität Hamburg: Family Economics

Institution: Graduate School der Universität Hamburg

Dozentinnen: Miriam Beblo & Evelyn Korn (Univ. Marburg)

Datum und Zeitplanung:

  • Mo., 13.04.15, 09-18:15 Uhr
  • Di., 14.04.15,   10-18:30 Uhr
  • Mi., 15.04.15,   08:30-12:30 Uhr

Ort: Universität Hamburg, Raum B 136 (VMP 9)

Beschreibung:

PhD Seminar „Family Economics – Theoretical and empirical perspectives on reconciling family and work“

Prof. Miriam Beblo (Universität Hamburg) | Professor Evelyn Korn (Philipps-Universität Marburg) SoSe 2015

Fertility rates are decreasing, unskilled labour abounding while skilled labour becomes scarce. How to address these issues? The reconciliation of family life and work – particularly for women – appears to be one way out and has apparently become a major goal of non-governmental organizations (including firms) and governments in most industrialized countries. The proposed measures address acting individuals (by affirmative action rules) as well as families and households (by family-based taxation, child transfers, or parental-leave arrangements). To see how policies at different levels can affect individual decision making as well as individual and household welfare, decision making models that include individual objectives and social organization are necessary. This connection is the core of household theory and of our seminar.

The seminar will introduce basic household models. It will take a game- and contract-theoretical perspective which allows us to analyse the effect of the institutional setup on individual decision making and the evolution of institutions that is triggered by these decisions.

In addition to the theoretical perspective, the seminar will address empirical family economic approaches. Together with the students we will derive testable implications and review empirical methods as well as data sources to set up these tests.

The participants are expected to present their own research ideas and moot their theoretical and empirical approaches to the seminar. Alternatively to own papers students may present an overview of family economic studies in economic journals and focus on one publication of their choice.

The key questions are:

How is household production organized and how does this relate to market work?

  • What are the conflicts between individual and household welfare? How does legislation interfere?
  • How do household formation and household behavior interact?

Important note by Prof. Korn: The detailed schedule of the course depends on the participants’ prerequisites and heterogeneity. To be able to use the time in class as productively as possible, I would like to learn about your prior knowledge and interests. Therefore, there will be self-test given on March 13. I will use the information from the test to fine-tune the course schedule for the theoretical part.

Anmeldung:

Anmeldungen sind ab sofort bis zum 19.03.2015 über Geventis https://www.geventis.uni-hamburg.de möglich.