Dear Labor econ students,
I bring to you an outline of what we consider to be your term paper. It is expected that it will represent a Critical Literature Review (CLR).
As the coursebook specifies, it should be ~15 000 characters long, coherent and carefully crafted text focused on very clear labor econ topic.
The CLR grade adds 25% to your final overall course score!

You know already how broad are the interests of labor economists, that it goes far beyond  simple labor demand/supply issues.
You was also given number of links to find inspiration (including not only the presentations at annual associations of labo(u)r economists
European http://www.eale.nl/Conference2014/Program.htm
US SOLE http://www.sole-jole.org/annualmeetings.htm

and US, but also field journals like European Labour Economics http://www.journals.elsevier.com/labour-economics/
US Journal of Labor Economics http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/journals/journal/jole.html

But numerous other sub-field econ journals like http://www.popecon.org/
or broad field journals like American Economic Review, Review of Economics and Stastistics

Also important reviews can be found in famous Journal of Economic Literature and simplified reviews in Journal of Economic Perspectives.

Make sure that you (bold are features to be reflected in the grade):

1. identify and specify your topic very clearly ASAP
   
2. consult it with one of us before you start exploring it
3. find and read important, good quality and more recent economic research literature on the topic before your start thinking in detail and writing CLR
4. in the end of Feb are able to present in ~10 minutes at a workshop the essence of your topic (motivation of why it is interesting&important) , the key literature findings (models, identifications strategies, data)
5. submit the final version of the CLR
   
1. no later than just after finals
2. containing well crafted literature review (focusing on more important issues) like reviews you can find in most research papers in good journals (look at them!).
   
3. containing also your own CRITICAL insight (questioning smartly models, identification strategies, and data used by serious existing studies + suggesting how things could be done better and what would be needed top do that)
4. written in good English, suitably and smoothly structured

We recommend that:
- you choose narrow topic, rather than broad one (given quite limited space allowed by the expected length)
- discuss continuously your findings and ideas with your colleagues
- you work smoothly on the CLR and do not postpone the work till the end of the semester

I hope this will help you for now.
DM