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 as well as in a standard dynamic model of entry and exit. We find...

We document large differences in trend changes in hours worked across OECD countries over the period 1956-2004. We then assess the extent to which these changes are consistent with the intratemporal first order condition from the neoclassical growth model. We find large and trending deviations...

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...

This paper studies lifetime aggregate labor supply with endogenous workweek length. Such a theory is needed to evaluate various government policies. A key feature of our model is a nonlinear mapping from hours worked to labor services. This gives rise to an endogenous workweek that can differ...

Changes in hours worked since 1950; This article describes changes in the number of average weekly hours of market work per person in the United States since World War II. Overall, this number has been roughly constant; for various groups, however, it has shifted dramatically from males to females,...

We analyze the forces that can generate retirement in different versions of standard life cycle models of labor supply. While nonconvexities in production can generate retirement, we show that the size of nonconvexities needed increases sharply as the intertemporal elasticity of substitution for...

We build a general equilibrium model that features uninsurable idiosyncratic shocks, search frictions and an operative labor supply choice along the extensive margin. The model is calibrated to match the average levels of gross flows across the three labor market states: employment,...

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...