people employed). Labour laws result in the labour marketed differing from other markets (like the markets for goods or the financial market) in several ways Labour economics is the subfield of economics concerned with the study of labour as an input to economic production. Broadly, it surveys labor markets and the economic decisions of agents (i.e., workers and employers) participating in such markets. Topics of study include the labour supply of workers and how it is affected by variables such as age, education, gender and childbearing, as well as th The marginal revenue product of labour can be used as the demand for labour curve for this firm in the short run. In competitive markets, a firm faces a perfectly elastic supply of labour which corresponds with the wage rate and the marginal resource cost of labour (W = SL = MFCL). In imperfect markets, the diagram would have to be adjusted because MFCL would then be equal to the wage rate divided by marginal costs. Because optimum resource allocation requires that marginal factor costs equal marginal revenue product, this firm would demand L units of labour as shown in the diagram. The demand for labour of this firm can be summed with the demand for labour of all other firms in the economy to obtain the aggregate demand for labour. Likewise, the supply curves of all the individual workers (mentioned above) can be summed to obtain the aggregate supply of labour. These supply and demand curves can be analysed in the same way as any other industry demand and supply curves to determine equilibrium wage and employment levels. Wage differences exist, particularly in mixed and fully/partly flexible labour markets. For example, the wages of a doctor and a port cleaner, both employed by the NHS, differ greatly. There are various factors concerning this phenomenon. This includes the MRP of the worker. A doctor's MRP is far greater than that of the port cleaner. In addition, the barriers to becoming a doctor are far greater than that of becoming a port cleaner. To become a doctor takes a lot of education and training which is costly, and only those who excel in academia can succeed in becoming doctors. The port cleaner, however, requires relatively less training. The supply of doctors is therefore significantly less elastic than that of port cleaners. Demand is also inelastic as there is a high demand for doctors and medical care is a necessity, so the NHS will pay higher wage rates to attract the profession. Real-world labour markets exhibit imperfect competition, under which the above neoclassical model fails and thus labour markets may be inefficient. In such cases, labour markets may have a small number of employers who thus have disproportionate power over employment…