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Urban Economy and Labour

Home/ Urban Economy and Labour
Course Type Course Code No. Of Credits
Discipline Core NSGA1DCU202 4

Course coordinator and team: Dr. Shekhar Tokas 

  1. Summary (Tentative): This course on Urban Economy and Labour is designed to expose students to the dynamics of the urban economy and its interlinkages with labour and economic growth and development. The first module provides a clear and concise presentation of urban economy and labour as a factor behind economic growth and development of cities. It initiates with a historical trajectory of cities and labour during mercantilism (or preindustrial) era, colonial and post-colonial era, and neo-liberal era. This module tries to seek answers to questions like "Why do some cities grow faster than others?" and "Why do some cities generate more wealth? The second module provides a theoretical understanding of economic models and policies relating to the economics of urban labour markets, highlighting the formation and working of urban labour markets, linkages between rural and urban migration, migration and urban labour markets, and wage, livelihood, and employment issues of urban labour. The third module exposes students to the fundamentals of urban land economy with a focus on land use and development, transit-based development and value of land and rentier economy. The last module discusses labour in the gig, platform and informal economies. It explores questions related to informalization, labour processes, and working conditions in the platform and informal sectors.
  2. Objectives (Tentative):
  3. To introduce students to the area of urban economy and labour with an emphasis to equip them with economic theory and empirics. 
  4. The train students in issues pertaining to urban labour markets.
  5. To expose students to fundamental principles of urban land economy.
  6. To build a critical understanding of labour issues in contemporary gig, platform and informal urban economy.
  7. Expected Learning Outcomes (Tentative):

At the end of the course students will be able to:

  1. Understand and apply economic principles and theories to analyze issues related to urban economy and labour.
  2. Understand and apply the key concepts of urbanization and migration, and its interlinkages with economic growth and development.
  3. Develop an economically ingrained understanding of policies and practices governing urban labour markets, land and urban economy, and informal economy. 
  4. Systematically assess the empirical studies on urban economy and labour to contribute to wider urban discourses.

Overall Structure:

Modules

Themes

Duration

1

Understanding Urban Economy

3 weeks

2

Urban Labour Markets

4 weeks

3

Land and Urban Economy

2 weeks

4

Future of Work: Contemporary Labour Issues in Gig, Platform and Informal Economy 

3 weeks
  1. Contents (brief note on each module; indicative reading list with core and supplementary readings) 

Essential Readings:

Mercantilism/Preindustrial Era:

  • Burke, P. (1975). Some Reflections on the Pre-Industrial City. Urban History Yearbook, 2, 13-21. doi:10.1017/S0963926800001085

Colonial and Post-colonial Era:

  • Bhattacharya, S. (1981). Capital and Labour in Bombay City, 1928-29. Economic and Political Weekly, 16(42/43), PE36–PE44. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4370362

Neo-Liberal Era and Beyond:

  • Harvey, David (2005). A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Introduction and Chapter 3, OUP.
  • Ahmed, W. (2015). Neoliberal Utopia and Urban Realities in Delhi. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 10(2), 163–188. Retrieved from https://acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/893

Urban Economy:

  • O’Sullivan Arthur, Urban Economics, Chapter 1, 2 (8th Edition), McGraw Hill/Irwin.
  • O’Flaherty, Brendan, City Economics, Chapter 1, 2, 18 (pp. 517-551), Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2005.
  • Polèse, Mario. "Five Principles of Urban Economics." City Journal (Winter 2013). 
  • Duncan Black and Vernon Hendersion, “A theory of urban growth.”  Journal of political economy, 1999,  pp. 252-284.  (JSTOR)
  • Quigley, John (1998). Urban diversity and economic growth.” Journal of economic perspectives, pp. 127-138, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0895-3309%28199821%2912%3A2%3C127%3AUDAEG%3E2.0.CO%3B2-S   
  • World Bank, “Dynamic Cities as Engines of Economic Growth,” in World Development Report  1999-2000: Entering the 21st Century–The Changing Development Landscape (1999):  125–138. (Focus especially on 130–138.)
  • Massey, Douglas S., et al. “Theories of International Migration: A Review and Appraisal.” Population and Development Review, vol. 19, no. 3, 1993, pp. 431–66. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2938462. Accessed 15 May 2023.  
  • McAuliffe, M. and A. Triandafyllidou (eds.), 2021. World Migration Report 2022. Chapter 1 and 2, International Organization for Migration (IOM), Geneva.

Videos:

  • “What is a City?” The Atlantic, 2014. 
  • “What Does Urban Economics Teach Us About the World?” The London School of Economics, 2018.
  • Cities As Engines Of Economic Growth (World Bank Institute), 2011, https://youtu.be/mANzdLhxXXw 
  • Cities and Economic Growth with Edward Glaeser -- UC San Diego (2018), https://youtu.be/mFUjqpmMlwY 

Module 2: Urban Labour Markets [4 weeks]

Essential Readings: 

  • Bhattacharya, Sabyasachi (2014). Introduction, in Bhattacharya, S. (ed.), Towards a New History of Work, Tulika Books, New Delhi, India.
  • Ehrenberg, R.G. and Smith, R.S. (2018): Modern Labor Economics: Theory and Public Policy, Routledge.
  • Blundell and MaCurdy, “Labor Supply: A Review of Alternative Approaches” Handbook, Vol. 3A, Chapter 27
  • India's labour market during the 2000s: An overview. In K. Ramaswamy (ed.): Labour, employment and economic growth in India. Cambridge University Press, 21-56, 2014.
  • Bhattacharya, J. (2023). Indian Urban Workers’ Labour Market Transitions. Indian Journal of Labour Economics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41027-023-00434-9
  • Becker, G. (1964). Human Capital. Chapter 1, 2nd edition. Columbia University Press, New York; 1964.
  • Roberts, B. (1995). The Urban Economy and the Organization of the Labour Market, in The Making of Citizens: Cities of Peasants Revisited (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003058878 
  • Todaro, M P and S C Smith (2011), Economic Development, 12th Edition, Prentice Hall (Chapter 3,4,5,7).
  • Kannappan, S. (1988). Urban Labor Markets and Development. The World Bank Research Observer, 3(2), 189–206. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3986440 
  • Morris A. Davis, et al. (2021). Migration and urban economic dynamics, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Vol. 133. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jedc.2021.104234 
  • John Friedmann and Flora Sullivan, (1974), The Absorption of Labor in the Urban Economy: The Case of Developing Countries, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 22, No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1086/450727 
  • Mohanty, Ranjita (2020). Migrant Workers and the Dark Underbelly of Urban Economy Home is a Long Way, The Citizen. https://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/9/18573/Migrant-Workers-and-the-Dark-Underbelly-of-Urban-Economy
  • Mitra, A., P.K. Shrivastav and G.P. Singh. 2022. Livelihood volatility in the urban labour market. Economic & Political Weekly 57 (35): 63.
  • Roy, D., Saroj, S. & Pradhan, M. Nature of employment and outcomes for urban labor: evidence from the latest labor force surveys in India. Ind. Econ. Rev. 57, 165–221 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41775-022-00131-2 
  • Upadhyaya, Sanjay (2022), Evolution of Trade Unions in India, V.V. Giri National Labour Institute, 1-48.

 

 

Module 3: Land and Urban Economy [2 Weeks]

Essential Readings:

  • Byahut S., Patel B., & Mehta J. (2020). Emergence of sub-optimal land utilization patterns in Indian cities. Volume 25, Issue 6. Journal of Urban Design, Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.1080/13574809.2020.1752646
  • Mondal, Rima. (2022). Evaluation of Land Pooling Policy in Delhi Institutional Innovation in Land Development, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 57, Issue No. 10.
  • Cowan, Thomas. (2018). The Urban Village, Agrarian Transformation, and Rentier Capitalism in Gurgaon, India. Antipode. 50. 10.1111/anti.12404.
  • Kundu, A. (2003). Politics and Economics of Land Policies: Delhi’s New Master Plan. Economic and Political Weekly, 38(34), 3530–3532. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4413928
  • Sampat, Preeti. (2016). Dholera: The Emperor's New City, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 51, Issue No. 17, pp. 59-67.
  • Randhawa, Pritpal. (2012). Delhi Metro Rail: Beyond Mass Transit. Economic and Political Weekly. Vol. 47, Issue No. 16. 
  • National Institute of Urban Affairs. (2016). Transit Oriented Development For Indian Smart Cities. https://www.niua.org/tod/todfisc/book.php?book=1&section=3#supersection-1

.

 

Module 4: Future of Work: Contemporary Labour Issues in Gig, Platform and Informal (GPI) Economy [3 week]

Essential Readings:

  • NITI Aayog. (2022). India’s Booming Gig and Platform Economy: Perspectives and Recommendations on the Future of Work. June, 2022. 
  • P. Babu Ramesh, `Small Jobs; Big Worries: Insecurities of Gig Work in the Time of Pandemic’, Journal of Development Policy Review, Vol.1, Issue 3, 2020
  • Barnes, Tom. (2018). Informal Labour in Urban India: Three Cities, Three Journeys. Chapter 1 and 5, Routledge.Making the Gig Work, Business Line, Jan 2023, https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/making-the-gig-work/article66362177.ece 
  • Ramaswamy, K.V. (2019). “Non-standard Employment, Labour Laws and Social Security: Learning from the US Gig Economy Debate” in K.R. Shyam Sundar (ed.) Globalization, Labour Market Institutions, Processes and Policies in India, Palgrave Macmillan. Sections 1 to 3.1 pp. 277-286.
  • Roy, Satyaki (2014). “Informality’ and Neo-liberalism: Changing Norms and Capital’s Control” in Kannan et al (eds.) Labour and Development: Essays in Honour of Professor T. S. Papola, Academic Foundation, New Delhi- 215-234.
  • Fields, G. S. (1990). Labour market modelling and the urban informal sector: Theory and evidence [Electronic version]. In D. Turnham, B. Salomé, & A. Schwarz (Eds.), The informal sector revisited (pp. 49-69). Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
  • Protecting Platform Workers, The financial express, Feb 2023, https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/protecting-platform-workers/2990913/
  • NCEUS (2007). “Towards Protection and Promotion of Livelihoods of Unorganised Workers (Chapter 12)”, in the NCEUS Report on Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelihoods in the Unorganised Sector (2007), Government of India, New Delhi.
  • Chakravarty, S. 2016. Between Informalities: Mahipalpur Village as an Entrepreneurial Space. In Space, Planning and Everyday Contestations in Delhi, ed. S. Chakravarty and R. Negi. New Delhi: Springer.
  • Benjamin, Solomon. (1999)Land, Productive Slums, and Urban Poverty: A note for the World Bank Consultation.

 

Video:

 

Other General Readings for the Course:

  • Arnott, Richard; McMillen, Daniel P., eds. (2006). A Companion to Urban Economics. Blackwell Publishing.
  • Capello, Roberta; Nijkamp, Peter, eds. (2004). Urban Dynamics and Growth: Advances in Urban Economics. Elsvier Inc.          
  • Ehrenberg, R.G. and Smith, R.S. (2018): Modern Labor Economics: Theory and Public Policy, Routledge.



Pedagogy: 


 

  1. Instructional strategies: This course will use a combination of lectures, thematic open discussions, presentations, in class collaborative activities, industry visit and documentary/film/videos. 


 

  1. Special needs (facilities, requirements in terms of software, studio, lab, clinic, library, classroom/others instructional space; any other – please specify): No


 

  1. Expertise in AUD faculty or outside: Yes, within AUD


 

  1. Linkages with external agencies (e.g., with field-based organizations, hospital; any others): No
  1. Assessment structure (modes and frequency of assessments):

 

The course will have three assessment situations as part of continuous assessment policy of AUD: 

  1. First assessment will be a combination of class based surprise test, classroom interaction and assignment submission – 1/3rd weightage to each criteria (30%).
  2. Second assessment will be project-based work on UEL (Submission of Project Report/Paper/ Blog Writing/Making videos (2/3rd weightage) and presentation (1/3rd weightage) - (30%). 
  3. Third assessment will be an end-term in class examination (40%).

 

 

 

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