ECONOMICS 376M, Unique No. 34320 D. Hamermesh Fall 2012

The Economics of Life

Office Hours: M, 9:45-11:45, W 1:30-3:30, or by appointment, BRB 2.162 Tel: 475-8526 Email: [email protected] Website http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Hamermesh/class.html

All readings are on the CD-ROM that you will be given on the first day of class. Everybody must read the items WITHOUT a star (without *). You will be held responsible for the broad outlines of the material in the starred (*) items, since each student will present one of these in class. Please DO NOT worry about pages that are deleted from the required readings: They have been removed because I don’t want you to read them. The required readings are purposely kept few in number to allow time for work on writing assignments

GRADING: There will be a midterm exam (on Thursday, Nov. 1) counting 20 percent of the grade. Another 15 percent of your grade is based on your class attendance and your presentation—you must be present at your classmates' presentations. (In addition to the starred (*) reading that you present, you will also present your own paper while it is in progress.) The 5-page paper counts for 15 percent of the grade, while the 15-page paper counts 50 percent of the grade. + and – grades will be assigned.

The 5-page paper is a proposal detailing what you will do on the main paper. This proposal is due on Tuesday, October 16. The idea must be cleared with the instructor no later than Thursday, October 11. A complete draft of the paper is due at Noon Tuesday, November 27. It will be handed back with writing corrections in class on Thursday, December 3. The revised final submission is due at Noon Friday, December 14.

CLASS AND READING SCHEDULE

Class Dates, Topics and Readings

Aug. 30, Sept. 4, 6, 11 Dating, Mating and Beauty (Topic 1)

Gary Becker, "Assortative Mating in Marriage Markets"

Alvin Roth and Xiaolin Xing, "Jumping the Gun"

*Günter Hitsch et al, “Matching and Sorting in Online Dating”

*Eric Gould and Daniele Paserman, “Waiting for Mr. Right: Rising Inequality and Declining Marriage Rates”

*Kasey Buckles et al, “Changing the Price of Marriage”

*Steven Levitt and Sudhir Venkatesh, “An Empirical Analysis of Street-Level Prostitution”

*Daniel Hamermesh and Jeff Biddle, “Beauty and the Labor Market”

Sept. 13, 18, 20, 25 Fertility (Topic 2)

Gary Becker, “An Economic Analysis of Fertility”

Gary Becker, "The Demand for Children"

*Gerald Oettinger, "The Effects of Sex Education"

*Silvie Colman and Ted Joyce, "Regulating Abortion: Impact on Patients and Providers in Texas”

*Martha Bailey, “Momma’s Got the Pill”

*Anders Björklund, “Does Family Policy Affect Fertility?”

Sept. 27, Oct. 2, 4, 9: Household Behavior (Topic 3)

Gary Becker, "Division of Labor in Households and Families"

Paul Samuelson; Ted Bergstrom and Oded Stark, short articles on altruism

Shelly Lundberg and Robert Pollak, “The American Family and Family Economics”

*James Andreoni et al, "Charitable Giving by Married Couples"

*Lingxin Hao et al, “Games Parents and Adolescents Play”

*Dan Black et al, “The Economics of Gay and Lesbian Families”

*Anna Aizer and Pedro dal Bo, “Love, Hate and Murder

Oct. 11, 16, 18, 23: Time Use (Topic 4)

Borjas, “Labor Supply”

Gary Becker, "A Theory of the Allocation of Time"

Staffan Linder, The Harried Leisure Class, Chs. 7, 8

*Gerald Oettinger, “An Empirical Analysis of the Daily Labor Supply of Stadium Vendors”

*Daniel Hamermesh and Jungmin Lee, “Stressed Out on Four Continents”

*Daiji Kawaguchi et al, “A Gift of Time”

*Michael Burda et al, “Total Work and Gender: Facts and Possible Explanations”

Oct. 25, Oct. 30: Divorce (Topic 5)

Elizabeth Peters, "The Importance of Financial Considerations in Divorce Decisions"

*Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, “Marriage and Divorce; Changes and their Driving Forces”

*Bradley Heim, “Does Child Support Enforcement Reduce Divorce Rates?”

MIDTERM (hursday, Nov. 1)

Nov. 6, 8: Religion (Topic 6)

Laurence Iannacone, "A Formal Model of Church and Sect" [Read selectively]

*David Jaeger and Daniele Paserman, “The Cycle of Violence”

*Jonathan Gruber and Daniel Hungerman, “The Church versus the Mall”

Nov. 13, 15, 20, 27: Presentation of Term Project in Class

Nov. 29, Dec. 4: Aging and Death (Topic 7)

*Susan Rohwedder and Robert Willis, “Mental Retirement

Daniel Hamermesh, "Expectations, Life Expectancy and Economic Behavior"

*Jens Ludwig et al, “Anti-Depressants and Suicide”

Dec. 6: Intergenerational Relations -- What's Left Behind (Topic 8)

*Wojciech Kopczuk and Joel Slemrod, “Dying to Save Taxes: Evidence from Estate Tax Returns on the Death Elasticity”

*David Harrington, “Preserve Funeral Markets with Ready-to-Embalm Laws”