Americans work more than Europeans. Using micro data from the United States and 17 European countries, we document that women are typically the largest contributors to the cross-country differences in work hours. We also show that there is a negative relation between taxes and annual hours...

Americans work more than Europeans. Using micro data from the U.S. and 17 European countries, we study the contributions from demographic subgroups to these aggregate level dierences. We document that women are typically the largest contributors to the discrepancy in work hours. We also document...

Americans work more than Europeans. Using micro data from the U.S. and 17 European countries, we study the contributions from demographic subgroups to these aggregate level dierences. We document that women are typically the largest contributors to the discrepancy in work hours. We also document...

This paper studies gender differences in the elasticity of labor supply in a model of household specialization. I show that household specialization implies larger Frisch elasticities for the partner that specializes in home production. Quantitatively, empirical time-use ratios alone imply...

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...

This paper formally explores the joint roles played, on the one side, by the regulation of wages and, on the other side, by the existence of a “backyard” (or home) technology exploited by the unemployed people, in a standard neoclassical OLG growth model. The main findings are the following:...

In the U.S. economy hours and productivity are negatively correlated, and volatility of hours is two times higher than volatility of productivity. In the standard one shock RBC model hours are positively correlated with productivity, and hours are two times less volatile than productivity. This...

In the U.S. economy hours and productivity are negatively correlated, and volatility of hours is two times higher than volatility of productivity. In the standard one shock RBC model hours are positively correlated with productivity, and hours are two times less volatile than productivity. This...

This paper investigates the impacts of firm technology choice on cross-country variations in gender gaps---particularly those variations in the wages and time devoted to home production. For this purpose, we construct a general equilibrium model that includes firm technology choice and home...

A home production model that explicitly accounts for taxes and public expenditures on day-care and elder-care, substitutes for work households perform at home, is used to evaluate the welfare implications of alternative public expenditure policies. Both subsidy and workfare policies are welfare...