Status considerations with respect to consumption give rise to negative externalities because individuals do not take into account that their decisions affect the relative consumption position of others. Further, status concerns create incentives for excessive labour supply in competitive...

The standard literature on working time has modelled the decisions of firms in a deterministic framework in which firms can choose between employment and overtime (given mandated standard hours). Contrary to this approach, we consider the impact of uncertainty and real options on the decision of...

This study is the first to estimate mother's marginal willingness to pay (MWP) for job amenities directly. Its identification strategy relies on German maternity leave length. The key aspect of the maternal leave framework is that mothers can decide whether and when to return to their guaranteed...

We study the consequences of a working time reduction (WTR hereafter) in a growth model with efficiency wages and an essential natural resource (natural capital). Considering that technical progress cannot reduce the resource content of final production to zero, we show that the effects of a WTR...

This paper evaluates two approaches to work-sharing by examining both within the same macro model. The standard approach involves imposing a quantity constraint on labour market participants (a maximum number of standard hours for each worker). This approach is compared to a revenue-neutral...

We use national labor force surveys from 1983 through 2011 to construct hours worked per person on the aggregate level and for different demographic groups for 18 European countries and the US. We find that Europeans work 19% fewer hours than US citizens. Differences in weeks worked and in the...

In this paper we study the effects on the survival rate in employment of a scheme that facilitates gradual retirement through working time reductions. We use information on the entire labour market career and other observables to control for selection and take dynamic treatment assignment into...

We propose an explanation of why Europeans choose to work fewer hours than Americans and also suffer higher rates of unemployment. Labor market regulations, unemployment benefits, and high levels of public consumption in many European countries reduce, ceteris paribus, the gains from being...

We examine the redistributive impact of working time regulations in an economy with unequal lifetimes. It is shown that uniform working time reductions, when uncompensated (i.e. constant hourly wage), can reduce inequalities in realized lifetime well-being between short-lived and long-lived...

Although the rise in obesity and overweight is related to time constraints influencing health investments (e.g., exercise, shopping and cooking time, etc.), there is limited causal evidence to substantiate such claims. This paper estimates the causal effect of a change in working times on...