Labour Supply when Consumption Takes Time

When dealing with labour supply, the classical microeconomic theory does not investigate cautiously the way consumer-workers allocate time. The non-working time (more often called "leisure") is assumed to be a normal good on which the individual preferences are defined. This paper is based on the works of Becker (Becker G. S. (1965) "A theory of time allocation". Economic Journal, 75 pp.493-517) and aims at strenghtening the theoretical foundation of the individual labour supply function by assuming that consumption takes time. The model so developed is then compared to the classical formulation of the individual behaviour on the labour market. It is shown that, in such a framework, individuals may decide not to work whatever the wage level.