Director: Derek Jones, Professor of Economics
Phone: 315-859-4183
Email: djones@hamilton.edu
In a dynamic and globalizing world, labor markets are experiencing profound changes. The structure of employment is continuously affected by technical change in the new economy. Employers seek to adjust their preferred skill mixes. Employees must choose appropriate levels of education and seek firms that provide preferred types of training. We will study these and similar questions using New York City as a resource for learning about these issues. Course work will focus on labor economics and employment and labor relations, and will include several field trips and guest lecturers.
Examination of selected theoretical and empirical questions concerning the labor market. Applications will focus on New York City. Topics to include: what are labor markets?; who participates in the labor market and how intensively? Labor demand; human resource and compensation systems in different sectors; labor unions in the private and public sectors; regulated and unregulated work in NY city; unemployment; membership in labor unions; economic effects of unions. Prerequisite 102. Economics concentrators and minors may receive one credit equivalent to Economics 370 toward their concentration or minor.
A tutorial resulting in a substantial paper (30 pages) that integrates experience and learning from the internship with an academic perspective and knowledge gained in the seminars or other tutorial readings.
Work experience during four days a week that includes a journal or written account of that experience
An introduction to issues in the broad field of employment and labor relations. Definitions, methods and evolution of the field. The employment relationship and major institutions. Job security, working conditions, work-life balance, human resource management policies, including methods of compensation. Field trips to sites and cases to illustrate key historical events and contemporary issues.
Director: Maurice Isserman, Associate Professor of Art
Phone: 315-859-4414
Email: misserma@hamilton.edu
Immigrants today account for over forty percent of New York City’s workforce. That percentage has grown in recent decades, as new waves of immigrants from Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and Central and South America have moved to the city. But there has never been a time in the past three centuries when immigrants were not a vital component of the city’s working class population. New York City’s history is thus intimately bound up with the history of labor and immigration, and the history of reform movements working on behalf of the immigrant working class. These movements for social and economic justice drew on inspiration from abroad, and profoundly influenced American politics and life outside New York City, from the 18th century down to the present. We will explore this complex, interrelated history, both in our reading assignments and discussions, and by exploring the streets and neighborhoods that witnessed and shaped three centuries of working class immigrant life. We begin with 18th century artisan protest, and conclude with Occupy Wall Street.
The course is organized around readings, class discussion, films, guest discussion leaders, and field trips in New York City. We will begin our exploration of immigration, labor, and reform by reading Sean Wilentz’s Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rose of the American Working Class, 1788-1850, move on to works concerned with later immigrant groups and social movements, including Irving Howe’s World of Our Fathers: The Journey of East European Jews to America and the Life that They Found and Made, and continue down to readings about present day immigration, labor and reform movements, concluding with Todd Gitlin’s Occupy Nation: The Roots, the Spirit, and the Promise of Occupy Wall Street. We will visit sites associated with this three-century history, including the streets of the Lower East Side, Ellis Island, the New York City Tenement Museum, and Zuccotti Park.
1 Credit; can be counted as a 300-level course for history concentrators.
A tutorial resulting in a substantial paper that integrates experience and learning from the internship with an academic perspective and knowledge gained in the seminars or other tutorial readings.
1 Credit
An Independent Study supervised by the director of the Program in New York City and based on an internship with a firm, organization, agency or advocacy group appropriate to the theme of course.
1 Credit
Student-directed discussions of books and films that illustrate the history of labor, immigration, and reform in the history of New York City.
1 Credit
Director: Erol Balkan, Professor of Economics
315-859-4180
Email: ebalkan@hamilton.edu
New York City has long been one of the financial centers in the global economy. Financial service activities of all kinds tend to be very strongly concentrated in key metropolitan centers like New York City, London and Tokyo. These form a complex network spanning national boundaries and connecting major cities around the world. By several indicators such as the volume of international currency trading, volume of foreign financial assets and the number of headquarters of the large international banks, New York City is one of the most important centers for global financial activities. The focus of our semester will be the study of global financial networks.
(Pre-Requisite Econ 102)
The major financial markets are more closely integrated today than they ever were in the past. The recent developments in information and communications technologies increased the globalization of financial markets and at the same time allowed the development of a whole new range of financial instruments known as derivatives. Deregulation and financial liberalization of different financial markets also gave an immense impetus to financial integration. Market liberalization affected interest rate ceilings, reserve requirements and barriers to geographical expansion, which in turn stimulated free international movement of capital.
This course covers a broad range of theories and issues in global finance, including the evolution of the current global financial markets, balance of payments problems, exchange rate determination and currency markets, financial and currency crisis, international capital flows, international banking, and macroeconomic policies in an open economy.
Foundational course of the Program in New York City. Critical examination of some of the global issues and challenges considered from a political economy perspective. Issues to include economic globalization, the role of basic international economic organizations (IMF, World Bank, WTO), the development and significance of global neo-liberalism, political and cultural globalization, ecological sustainability and global financial crisis. The course is organized around readings, class discussion, films, guest discussion leaders, and field trips in New York City.
A tutorial resulting in a substantial paper that integrates experience and learning from the internship with an academic perspective and knowledge gained in the seminars or other tutorial readings.
An Independent Study supervised by the director of the Program in New York City and based on an internship with a firm, organization, agency or advocacy group appropriate to the theme of course.
