Includes index.

Labor economics : introduction and overview -- The theory of individual labor supply -- Population, participation rates, and hours of work -- Labor quality : investing in human capital -- The demand for labor -- Wage determination and the allocation of labor --Alternative pay schemes and labor efficiency -- the wage structure -- Mobility, migration, and efficiency -- Labor unions and collective bargaining -- The economic impact of unions -- Government and the labor market : employment, expenditures, and taxation -- Government and the labor market : legislation and regulation -- Theories of labor market discrimination -- Women, blacks, and the labor market -- Job search : external and internal -- The personal distribution of earnings -- Labor productivity : wages, prices and employment -- Employment and unemployment

The focus of this textbook is upon labour economics as an applied field of micro and macro theory. The authors assert that labour economics has become a critical part of the core of analytical economics and not merely tangential.