This innovative text grounds the economic analysis of labor markets and employment relationships in a unified theoretical treatment of labor exchange conditions. In addition to providing thorough coverage of standard topics including labor supply and demand, human capital theory, and compensating wage differentials, the text draws on game theory and the economics of information to study the implications of key departures from perfectly competitive labor market conditions. Analytical results are consistently applied to contemporary policy issues and empirical debates. The text is supplemented by text boxes that illustrate key concepts with real-world applications, chapter appendices that explore technical material in greater depth, and end-of-chapter study questions that encourage students to apply, extend, and critically evaluate the theories under study.