everything.study
11.248

Civil Rights and Fair Housing Law

2-0-4 units · Graduate

Introduces students to basic principles of U.S. civil rights and anti-discrimination law, with a focus on land use and housing. Explores the role of the land use regulatory system in perpetuating or addressing racial inequality, including topics such as exclusionary zoning, residential segregation, and gentrification. Presents students with the central legal tools for addressing discrimination, including the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause, the Fair Housing Act, and fair lending laws. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

Spring 2005 · Information Technology and the Labor Market

Topics

  • Setting the Stage - Incomes, Occupations and Wages
  • Two Early Views of Computers’ Impacts
  • Does Technology Complement “Skill”?
  • Cognition I - Perceiving What Task is to be Done
  • IT and Tasks I: Rules Based Applications Including Expert Systems
  • IT and Tasks II: Pattern Recognition and Computer Learning
  • Implementing Computers and the Reorganization of Work
  • Implementing Computers and the Reorganization of Work (cont.)
  • Cognition II - What People Get Paid For: Expert Thinking and Complex Communication
  • IT and Markets
  • IT and Outsourcing
  • IT and Productivity
  • Wrap-up

Readings

  • ses #: 1 · topics: Setting the Stage - Incomes, Occupations and Wages · readings: Levy, Frank. “Industrial Change: Is There Life After the Service Sector?” and “Occupational Change: Can the Economy Still Produce Good Jobs, and, If So, Who Gets Them?” Chapters 4 and 5 respectively in The New Dollars and Dreams . New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 1998. ISBN: 0871545152.
    Reading assignment
  • Krueger, Alan B. “How Computers have Changed the Wage Structure: Evidence from Microdata, 1984-1989.” Quarterly Journal of Economics (February 1993): 33-60.
    Listed reading
  • Simon, Herbert. “The Corporation: Will it be Managed by Machines?” In Management and the Corporations . Edited by M. L. Anshen, and G. L. Bach. New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 1960, pp. 17-55. ISBN: 0837180511.
    Listed reading
  • Attewell, Paul. “What is Skill?” Work and Occupations 17 (1990): 422-448.
    Listed reading
  • Beamish, Anne, Frank Levy, and Richard J. Murnane. “Information Technology and Skill Requirements: Examples from a Car Dealership.” In Die Zukunft computergestuetzter Kfz-Diagnose. Edited by Felix Rauner, Norbert Schreier, and Georg Spoettl. Bielefeld, Germany: W. Bertelsmann Verlag, 2002. ISBN: 3763930221.
    Listed reading
  • Card, David, and John DiNardo. “Skill Biased Technological Change and Rising Wage Inequality: Some Problems and Puzzles.” Journal of Labor Economics 20, no. 4 (2002): 733-744, bottom of 746-761.
    Listed reading
  • Anderson, John R. “Perception,” Chapter 2, and “Conceptual Knowledge.” In Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications . New York, NY: W. H. Freeman, 1995, pp. 36-73, 151-168. ISBN: 0716723859.
    Listed reading
  • Quinn, Paul C. “Category Representation in Young Infants.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 11, no. 2 (April 2002): 66-70.
    Listed reading
  • Davis, Randall. “Knowledge Based Systems.” Science Magazine (February 28, 1968): 957-963.
    Listed reading
  • McCarthy, John. “Some Expert System (sic) Need Common Sense.” Stanford University, 1984. (Mimeo.) Also available here ( PDF ). ↗
    Listed reading
  • Mae, Fannie. “Understanding Desktop Underwriter.” Research Department of the Federal National Mortgage Association. January 14, 2000. (Memo.)
    Listed reading
  • Bowen, Kenneth A. “Rules-Based Management of Options Trading.” PC-AI (January/February 2000): 16-20.
    Listed reading
  • Duda, Richard O., Peter E. Hart, and David G. Stork. Pattern Classification . 2nd ed. New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons, 2001, chapter 1. ISBN: 0471056693.
    Listed reading
  • Quinn, Paul C., and M. H. Johnson. “The emergence of perceptional category representations in young infants: a connectionist analysis.” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 66 (1997): 236-63.
    Listed reading
  • Blois, Marsden S. “Clinical Judgment and Computers.” New England Journal of Medicine 303 (July 24, 1980): 192-197.
    Listed reading
  • Grimson, W. E. L., and J. L. Mundy. “Applications of Computer Vision.” Communications of the ACM 37, no. 3 (1994): 45-51. (Special Issue on “Commerical and Industrial AI.”)
    Listed reading
  • Freeman, William T., et al. “Computer Vision for Interactive Graphics.” IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 18, no. 3 (May-June 1998): 42-53.
    Listed reading
  • Autor, David, Frank Levy, and Richard J. Murnane. “Upstairs, Downstairs: Computers and Skills on Two Floors of a Large Bank.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review (April 2002).
    Listed reading
  • Goren, Allen L., et al. “Automated Natural Spoken Dialog.” IEEE Computer Magazine 5, no. 4 (April 2002): 51-56.
    Listed reading
  • ses #: 15 · topics: Implementing Computers and the Reorganization of Work · readings: Bartel, Ann, Casey Ichniowski, and Kathryn Shaw. “The Strategic Investment in Information Technologies and New Human Resource Practices and Their Effects on Productivity: An ‘Insider’ Econometric Analysis.” Columbia University, October 21, 2004. (Mimeo.)
    Reading assignment
  • Bransford, John, Ann Brown, and Rodney Cocking, eds. “How Experts Differ from Novices.” Chapter 2 in How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School . Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2000. ISBN: 0309070368.
    Listed reading
  • LeDoux, Joseph. “A Few Degrees of Separation.” In The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life . New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1996. ISBN: 0684836599.
    Listed reading
  • Murray, Nick. “Planning for the Five Great Goals of Life.” Chapter 8 in The Excellent Investment Advisor . Mattituck, NY: The Nick Murray Company, Inc., 1996. ISBN: 0965516105.
    Listed reading
  • Norrestradners, Tor. “The Tree of Talking.” Chapter 5 in The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size . New York, NY: Viking Press, 1998. ISBN: 0140230122.
    Listed reading
  • Valley, Kathleen, Leigh Thompson, Robert Gibbons, and Max H. Bazerman. “How Communication Improves Efficiency in Bargaining Games.” Games and Economic Behavior 38 (2002): 127-55.
    Listed reading
  • Goolsbee, Austin, and Judith Chevalier. “Measuring Prices and Price Competition On Line: Amazon and Barnes and Noble.” NBER Working Paper No. 9085, July 2002.
    Listed reading
  • Mendelson, Haim. “Dell Direct.” Teaching Case EC-17. Stanford University Business School Center for Electronic Business and Commerce. November 2000.
    Listed reading
  • Ellison, Glenn, and Sara Fisher Ellison. “Search, Obfuscation, and Price Elasticities on the Internet.” MIT Working Paper, January 2001.
    Listed reading
  • Hays, Constance. “What Wal-Mart Knows about Customer Habits,” New York Times , November 14, 2004.
    Listed reading
  • “A World of Work.” The Economist . November 11, 2004.
    Listed reading
  • Baily, Martin Neil, and Robert Z. Lawrence. “What Happened to the Great US Job Machine? The Role of Trade and Electronic Offshoring.” Brookings Papers in Economic Activity 2 (2004): Section 4.
    Listed reading
  • Burstein, Jill, et al. “ Criterion : Online Essay Evaluation: An Application for Automated Evaluation of Student Essays.” ( PDF ) ↗
    Listed reading
  • Roschelle, Jeremy, et al. “Changing How and What Children Learn in School with Computer Based Technologies.” Children and Computer Technology 10, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2000): 76-101.
    Listed reading
  • Levy, Frank, and Richard J. Murnane. “Computers and the Teaching of Skills.” Chapter 7 in The New Division of Labor . New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 2004. ISBN: 0691119724.
    Listed reading
  • Stiroh, Kevin J. “Information Technology and the U.S. Productivity Revival: What Do the Industry Data Say?” American Economic Review (December 2002).
    Listed reading
  • “Executive Summary and Synthesis of Findings from McKinsey and Company.” How IT Enables Productivity Growth . New York, NY: McKinsey Global Institute, October 2002. ↗
    Listed reading

Prerequisites & course information

Subject meets with 11.048 Prereq: None G (Spring; first half of term) Not offered regularly; consult department 2-0-4 units

Sources