This paper considers specialization and the division of labor. A more extensive division of labor raises productivity because returns to the time spent on tasks are usually greater to workers who concentrate on a narrower range of skills. The traditional discussion of the division of labor...

Our analysis treats advertisements and the goods advertised as complements in stable metautility functions, and generates new results for advertising by building on and extending the general analysis of complements. By assimilating the theory of advertising into the theory of complements, we...

The authors develop a theory of rational addiction in which rationality means a consistent plan to maximize utility over time. Strong addiction to a good requires a big effect of past consumption of the good on current consumption. Such powerful complementarities cause some steady states to be...

To test a model of rational addiction, the authors examine whether lower past and future prices for cigarettes raise current cigarette consumption. The empirical results tend to support the implication of addictive behavior that cross-price effects are negative and that long-run responses exceed...

The past casts a long shadow on the present through its influence on the formation of present preferences. The past influences present preferences through habitual, addictive, and traditional behavior, and in other ways. These have profound implications for the analysis of economic and social...

Altruistic parents make choices of family size along with decisions about consumption and intergenerational transfers. The authors apply this framework to a closed economy, where the determination of interest rates and wage rates is simultaneous with the determination of population growth and...

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface to the Enlarged Edition -- Introduction -- 1. Single-Person Households -- 2. Division of Labor in Households and Families 30 Supplement: Human Capital, Effort, and the Sexual Division of Labor -- 3. Polygamy and Monogamy in Marriage Markets -- 4. Assortative...