We make the distinction between bequests that are planned as part of some lifetime optimization stemming from a bequest motive, and those that are unplanned and result when the date of death differs from what the consumer might forecast. Lifetime optimization should lead to a negative effect or...

Food Stamps represent nearly $11 billion of personal income in the United States. The coupons that are issued to represent the purchasing power available to recipients are also reserves for the commercial banking system.This study asks how closely these coupons are substitutable for what is...

Firms' beliefs that they may be unable to sell as much as they would like at the market price leads not only to a quantity spillover (even when prices are flexible) but also to a spillover of product demand elasticity onto the elasticity of labor demand. Hence, optimal firm behavior can be...

We estimate substitution possibilities among a set of age-race-sex groups in the labor force. The estimates are based on cross-section data from SMSAs in 1969,and they allow us to consider how substitutable adult women are for young women or young men. The estimates are used, along with...

In economics many articles are subjected to multiple rounds of refereeing at the same journal, which generates time costs of referees alone of at least $50 million. This process leads to remarkably longer publication lags than in other social sciences. We examine whether repeated refereeing...

We summarize recent research on the wage and employment effects of minimum wage laws in the U.S. and infer from non-U.S. studies of hours laws the likely effects of unchanging U.S. hours laws. Minimum wages in the U.S. have increasingly become a province of state governments, with the effective...

We use data from the 11 waves of the U.S. Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development 1991-2005, following children from ages 6 months through 15 years. Observers rated videos of them, obtaining measures of looks at each age. Given their family income, parents' education, race/ethnicity and...

The American Time Use Survey 2003-15, the French Enquête Emploi du Temps, 2009-10, and the German Zeitverwendungserhebung, 2012-13, have sufficient observations to allow examining the theory of household production in much more detail than ever before. We identify income effects on time use by...

Same-sex couples' marital surplus, their excess total income over that predicted by their work times and predicted wages, increases little as the duration of their relationship lengthens. When/where same-sex marriage is legal, it rises sharply as duration increases. The availability of legal...

Using 2004-2008 data from the American Time Use Survey, we show that sharp differences between the time use of immigrants and natives become noticeable when activities are distinguished by incidence and intensity. We develop a theory of the process of assimilation--what immigrants do with their...