Labour and education economics 2400-PLSM118C

Seminar program.
In the first semester, master students will get acquainted with the basic problems of the labour market and education system, which is to serve the selection of the topic of their theses. Then, in a deeper way, they will become acquainted with the areas / issues of economics of education and labour economics selected by them both from the theoretical side and empirical research. Independent reading, presentations of problems and discussions interspersed with individual consultations are to lead to defining an individual research programme (topic, outline of the method, selection of databases).
In the second semester, on the basis of theoretical assumptions or empirical findings made by researchers, master students will design and perform their own research, evaluate and interpret the obtained results. They confront them with the results obtained in other researchers. Theoretical hypotheses, choice of methods, and results are the subject of presentation and discussion.
In the third semester, the work consists mainly of writing a thesis on the basis of previous reviews of theories, empirical literature and own research. The subject of discussion at the seminars are ready-made fragments of the master's thesis.

The inspiration to choose the topics of master's theses may be micro- or macroeconomic problems appearing in the course of earlier studies, own observations research literature and others.

Defining a research problem requires learning about the state of knowledge (theoretical and empirical), which is the task of the first semester, as well as the assessment of the ability to perform own research due to the complexity of the problem, methods used to study it, and the availability of databases necessary for its implementation.
Research projects may use databases available to the public, eg. via the Internet, such as Social Diagnosis, purchased by the Faculty in the Central Statistical Office, e.g. Household Budget Surveys, Labour Force Surveys, Employment and Compensation Studies, obtained from institutions gathering information from, for example, Labour Offices, self-governmental education offices, etc., as well as those obtained independently eg. through online surveys, interviews, experiments. There are also data from special research, in which researchers from the WNE took part, for example, an education study in selected local governments (in selected poviats, communes, cities with poviat rights), graduates’ research, study of the situation of people aged 18-29 from the perspective higher education.