Economics of Human Resources

This field covers Labor Economics, Health Economics, and Human Resource Economics. Labor Economics is concerned with the determination of wages and hours of work in labor markets. Health Economics is concerned with the production and demand for health care and how the determinants of demand and supply affect the costs of various types of health care services. Human Resource Economics studies individual, family, and market investments in various forms of human capital such as education, on-the-job training, and health. The field uses the tools of microeconomics and econometrics to examine empirical issues in the following areas:

• Derived demand analysis
• Labor supply
• Labor market structure including unions, minimum wage laws, and discrimination
• Investment in human capital
• Production and demand for health care and derived demand for medical care
• Economic models of the family, including population theory, quantity-quality substitution in the economics of fertility, and interactions among family background, ability, health, education, and earnings
• Supply and demand for physicians' services, hospital care, nurses and other personnel
• Uncertainty, health insurance, and the financing of medical care
• Inequality, economic opportunity, and socioeconomic mobility