Why do farm households inefficiently allocate resources across the plots they cultivate? We explore how these production inefficiencies relate to consumption decisions and information sharing within the household. In a lab-in-the-field experiment, male producers allocate too few inputs to their...

This paper proposes a dynamic structural model of labour market and childcare choices for couples within a collective model of decision making. We formalise explicitly the need for childcare as a function of the age structure of the children population in the household then examine the...

This paper provides insights into the welfare gains of forming a couple by estimating how much of the difference in housework time between single and married individuals is causal and how much is due to selection. Using longitudinal data from Australia, UK and US, we find that selection into...

The Atkinson-Stiglitz Theorem and its extensions have been interpreted as implying that capital income should not be taxed. If, as seems reasonable on empirical grounds, we introduce production of household goods with close market substitutes, this conclusion no longer holds. We analyse optimal...

Economists have devoted substantial attention to firms' supply of variety, but little to consumers' demand for variety. Employing the framework of home production, we trace differences in demand to differences in the opportunity costs of activities, which are associated with investments in human...

The standard household production model does not incorporate multitasking, although time-diary data reveal that individuals regularly multitask. We formulate a model where time spent in child care can be sole-tasked or multitasked with other household production activities. This model implies...

We present a household production model that incorporates multitasking and results from a customized experiment designed to measure the individual-specific productivity parameters from this model. We observe these productivity parameters under alternative incentive scenarios, designed to mimic...

We analyse the effects of retirement of one partner on home production by both partners in a couple. Using longitudinal data from Germany on couples, we control for fixed household specific effects to address the concern that retirement decisions are correlated with unobserved characteristics...

Using previously unexploited data on time scheduling in the employment and household contexts, we investigate the effect of flexible working on couples' coordination of their daily work time schedules in the UK. We consider three distinct dimensions of flexible working: flexibility of daily...