Course Schedule

Course Schedule

Veranstaltungen von Prof. Dr. Christian Pfeifer

Lehrveranstaltungen

Volkswirtschaftliches Forschungskolloquium (Kolloquium)

Dozent/in: Luise Görges, Boris Hirsch, Mario Mechtel, Christian Pfeifer, Joachim Wagner, Christoph Wegener, Thomas Wein

Termin:
wöchentlich | Dienstag | 12:15 - 13:45 | 07.04.2025 - 11.07.2025 | C 6.320 Seminarraum

Inhalt: Vorträge zu laufenden Forschungsarbeiten von Promovierenden und Wissenschaftlern des Instituts sowie von auswärtigen Gästen. Die Referenten sollten möglichst min. eine Woche vor dem Vortrag ihr Papier an Boris Hirsch schicken, der es dann für alle Teilnehmer zugänglich in MyStudy hochladen wird. Hierdurch sollen tiefergehende Diskussionen der Papiere ermöglicht werden. * im Seminarplan: Externe Gäste, mit denen wir vermutlich am Dienstagabend Essen gehen werden, wozu alle Interessierten gerne mitkommen können (Info bei Boris Hirsch).

"Happiness Research": An empirical approach towards the understanding of satisfaction and well-being of individuals and regions (Seminar)

Dozent/in: Christian Pfeifer

Termin:
wöchentlich | Montag | 14:15 - 15:45 | 07.04.2025 - 11.07.2025 | C 3.121 Seminarraum

Inhalt: Course description: This course is part of the complementary studies (Komplementärstudium “Medialitätsorientierte Zugänge zu den Sozialwissenschaften”). The teaching and examination language is German. But all materials (including slides, literature, online sources) are in English so that English speaking students will be able to follow the course (you can also answer the test and give the presentation in English). German speaking students must be able to deal with this English material and the German teaching language will help you with that. Although “Happiness research” is interdisciplinary and empirically driven, the course has a focus on the literature from economics. But no specific knowledge from economics or econometrics is necessary for the course. The first part of the course is lecture-based and gives an introduction to happiness research, its use for science and policy as well as some conceptional issues. Moreover, students are shown with real world data for Germany how aggregated happiness statistics are generated and how regression analyses are conducted in a statistical software package. The first part concludes with some examples from the economics literature about the impact of income, inflation, unemployment, conspicuous consumption, floods and droughts, air pollution, and terrorism on individual satisfaction and well-being. As part of the combined examination (KWA), students have to write a short test (45 minutes) about the first part, which accounts for 70% of the total grade. In the second part of the course, students have to present “Happiness Reports” in groups, which also compare nations and regions. Whereas the “World Happiness Reports” are more explicitly related to happiness and satisfaction, the OECD reports “How’s life? Measuring well-being” take a broader perspective on well-being, of which satisfaction is only one measure. Each group (4-6 students) has to present one report in one session (approx. 60-70 minutes + discussion in class) with a short introduction and conclusion; but the main focus should be on the presentation of the chapters about specific topics. The jointly graded group presentations account for 30% of the total individual grade. Please see the course outline and material for more information.

Applied Microeconomics II: Labor Economics (Vorlesung/Übung)

Dozent/in: Jonas Dix, Christian Pfeifer

Inhalt: Course description: This labor economics course is compulsory for Major Economics as a component of the module “Applied Microeconomics II” (4th term), in which microeconomic theory from previous terms is applied to the labor market. The course includes decisions of workers and firms about labor supply and labor demand, the equilibrium in competitive and non-competitive labor markets, minimum wages, works councils and unions. The presented theories are accompanied by applications, numerical examples, statistics, home assignments, general discussion points for repetition, class and group discussions, and empirical examples using Stata. Please see the course outline for more information about the content. Mandatory literature: Borjas, 2013, Labor Economics, 6th edition, McGraw-Hill [B-Chapter]. 1. Labor supply [B2]  Applications: Unemployment benefits, taxation, wage subsidies, income subsidies, minimum wages, overtime, work absence, workaholics, compensating wage differentials and non-monetary job characteristics, interdependent preferences, discrimination, piece rates and choice of work effort, unions, income target.  Student group discussions (inflation rate and sales taxes, EITC, overtime premia, commuting costs and commuting time, parents) and empirical example in Stata (life satisfaction in the context of labor supply model and compensating wage differentials). 2. Labor demand [B3] 2.1. Labor demand in the short-run with perfect competition  Applications: Efficiency wages, transaction costs.  Student group discussions (constant and increasing MPL, non-profit-organizations). 2.2. Labor demand in the short-run with imperfect competition [B4.9+4.10] 2.3. Application: Minimum wages and labor demand in the short-run 2.4. Labor demand in the long-run with perfect competition  Student group discussions (minimum wages in the long-run). 3. Labor market equilibrium: Shocks, Mobility, Unemployment, and Unions [B4, B12.2+12.4+12.10, B10]  Application and empirical example in Stata: Phillips Curve.  Student group discussions (unions).