Most economic models for time allocation ignore constraints on what people can actually do with their time. Economists recently have emphasized the importance of considering prior consumption commitments that constrain behavior. This research develops a new model for time valuation that uses...

In this paper we analyze income tax design in a two member household labor supply model where time spent on consumption together by the two household members is valued differently from time spent apart. We treat consumption as a non excludable public good to members of the household; one example...

In this paper, we use five decades of time-use surveys to document trends in the allocation of time. We find that a dramatic increase in leisure time lies behind the relatively stable number of market hours worked (per working-age adult) between 1965 and 2003. Specifically, we show that leisure...

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...

I use consumer expenditure surveys from 1888-1890, 1917-1919, 1935-1936, 1972-1973, and 1991 to determine whether trends in real income per capita are consistent with trends in recreational budget shares and to establish trends in inequality in recreational expenditures. I find that changes in...

I show that recreation has become much more egalitarian over the last hundred years by estimating recreational expenditure elasticities in 1888-1890, 1917-1919, 1935-1936, 1972-1973, and 1991. I find that expenditure elasticities have fallen from around two at the beginning of the century to...

The object of this paper is to examine the importance of capital market assumptions. A special continuous-time model is developed in sections II-IV which is applicable to the perfect capital market case. It can also be used when there is no capital market at all (section IV). For 'reasonable'...

From the theoretical point of view, the justification for aggregating leisure and work at home into one entity, "non-market time" (or "home time") can rest on two assumptions: (a.) the two elements react similarly to changes in the socio-economic environment and, hence, nothing is gained by...

Why are average hours worked per adult lower in rich countries than in poor countries? Two natural candidates to consider are income effects in preferences, in which leisure becomes more valuable when income rises, and distortionary tax systems, which are more prevalent in richer countries. To...

This paper examines inequality in both leisure and consumption over the past four decades using time use surveys stretching from 1975 to 2016. We show that individual and family characteristics, especially when including work hours, explain most of the long run variation in leisure. We then use...