This paper quantifies the size of precautionary savings implied by a dynamic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents when explicitly considering the labor supply decision of households. I find that precautionary savings are smaller than if they were measured by use of a model economy...

We explore the accumulation of assets in the presence of limited insurance against idiosyncratic shocks, borrowing constraints and endogenous labor productivity due to the so-called "nutrition curve". We show that in such an environment, any stationary equilibrium is characterized by a polarized...

Recent growth papers have utilized the Ben-Porath 1967 mechanism according to which prolonging the period in which individuals may receive returns on their investment spurs investment in human capital and cause growth. Implicitly, one implication of these models is that total labor input over...

Over the last fifty years, home production output may have changed significantly due to dramatic increases in women's time allocation to market work. It is important to quantify this change: to the extent that increases in GDP derive from new time allocation patterns, failure to measure...

The purpose of this paper is to study how progress in home production technologies and in medical technologies influences gender differences in labor market outcomes and the household division of labor, in an economy with endogenous gender roles. We consider a model in which incentive problems...

Approximately four out of ten American children experience the divorce of their parents. This raises concern because studies in sociology, developmental psychology, and economics show that offspring of divorced parents fare worse than offspring of married parents. The belief that a two-parent...

Since World War II there has been: (i) a rise in the fraction of time that married households allocate to market work, (ii) an increase in the rate of divorce, and (iii) a decline in the rate of marriage. What can explain this? It is argued here that technological progress in the household...

Men are generally observed to experience steeper wage increases during their work lives than women. Furthermore, men generally supply more hours to the labor market than women. While these observations are no longer as pronounced as they were 50 years ago, they still remain broadly true. This...

Market work per person is roughly 10 percent higher in the U.S. than in Sweden. However, if we include the work carried out in home production, the total amount of work differs by only 1%. I set up a model with home production and show that differences in policy - mainly taxes - can account for...

During the first half of the 20th century the workweek in the United States declined, and the distribution of hours across wage deciles narrowed. At the same time, the distribution of wages narrowed too. The hypothesis proposed is (i) Households have access to an increasing number of leisure...