In the Paradox of Declining Female Happiness, Stevenson and Wolfers (2007) document a new “gender gap” between the sexes, in which women today generally report lower subjective well-being relative to men. Motivated by recent work on gender-specific preferences, this paper considers whether...

We present a model of household decisions regarding sex, fertility, marriage, and consumption. Households choose marital status based on the expected utility of marriage, and then sex, children, and consumption of other goods to maximize utility subject to a budget and a fertility constraint. An...

We present a neoclassical model of the effects of contraception on fertility. Demands for sex and children are derived in a standard consumer problem with the addition of a fertility constraint. We evaluate the effect of shocks to contraceptive efficacy on fertility in the model and then extend...

Workers can contribute to total firm production directly through their own output or indirectly through their influence on the output of co-workers. Workers with positive productivity spillover effects cause individuals around them to perform better and increase overall team production. In...