The large differences in hours of work across industrialized countries reflect large differences in both employment to population ratios and hours per worker. We imbed the canonical model of labor supply into a standard matching model to produce a model in which both the intensive and extensive...

Recent empirical work finds a negative correlation between product market regulation and aggregate employment. We examine the effect of product market regulations on hours worked in a benchmark aggregate model of time allocation. We find that product market regulations affect time devoted to...

I analyze two extensions to the standard model of life cycle labor supply that feature operative choices along both the intensive and extensive margin. The first assumes that individuals face different continuous wage-hours schedules. The second assumes that all work must be coordinated across...

The response of aggregate labor supply to various changes in the economic environment is central to many economic issues, especially the optimal design of tax policies. This paper surveys recent work that uses structural models and micro data to evaluate the size of this response. Whereas the...

This paper examines the effect of community zoning regulations on allocations and welfare in a two-community model. Each community uses a local property tax to finance public education. Tax rates are determined by majority vote within each community, and individuals choose in which community to...

Structural transformation refers to the reallocation of economic activity across the broad sectors agriculture, manufacturing and services. This review article synthesizes and evaluates recent advances in the research on structural transformation. We begin by presenting the stylized facts of...

A large fraction of Uganda's population continues to earn a living from quasi-subsistence agriculture. This paper uses a static general equilibrium model to explore the relationships between high transportation costs, low productivity, and the size of the quasi-subsistence sector. We...

We ask what specification of preferences can account for the changes in the expenditure shares of broad sectors that are associated with the process of structural transformation in the U.S. since 1947. Following the tradition of the expenditure systems literature, we first calibrate utility...

We develop a simple model featuring search frictions and a nondegenerate labor supply decision along the extensive margin. The model is a standard version of the neoclassical growth model with indivisible labor with idiosyncratic shocks and frictions characterized by employment loss and...

Commonly used frictional models of the labor market imply that changes in frictions have large effects on steady state employment and unemployment. We use a model that features both frictions and an operative labor supply margin to examine the robustness of this feature to the inclusion of a...