Time-saving innovations, time allocation, and energy use: Evidence from Canadian households

Time and energy are major inputs into the production of household goods and services. As a result, the market penetration of time-saving technologies for general household use is expected to affect both a household's (i) allocation of time across home production and leisure activities; and (ii) energy use. For example, with a household's adoption of a microwave or a dishwasher, cooking food and washing dishes will require less time, and therefore in-home meal preparation may increase. Households with microwaves or dishwashers may also opt to spend more time undertaking other production activities, inside or outside the home, or engage in more leisure (watching TV, reading, exercising). To the extent that time is reallocated from less to more energy-intensive activities in the home, residential energy use will increase as households adopt appliances that embody time-saving technology. Furthermore, an adoption of time-saving technologies for basic household chores, such as meal preparation and laundry, can impact energy use due to the fact that many time-saving technologies are more energy intensive than alternative technologies that require larger time commitments. In this paper, we use the Canadian Survey of Household Energy Use data from 2003 to examine the extent to which ownership of products that embody time-saving innovations affects time allocation and energy use at the household level.     

Health,time allocation and work: empirical evidence from Turkey

This article investigates the relationship between health status and time allocation decisions of individuals. Although many studies address impacts of health on labour supply, few studies explore associations of health status with non-market work activities. Using a nationally representative sample from a recent Turkish Time Use Survey, this article employs Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) framework to estimate multiple equations of various time use categories. Consistent with literature, empirical results indicate that higher levels of self-reported health status (SRHS) are associated with more time spent in market work. However, better health level is negatively correlated with time spent in leisure and sleep. There is mixed evidence between self-reported health status (SRHS) and time spent on non-market work. There is a negative weak association between health and time devoted to personal care. Finally, demographics such as gender, age, education and marital status display correlations with time allocation of Turkish individuals.     

A note on work–leisure choice, human capital accumulation, and endogenous growth

The growth model of Lucas [Lucas Jr., R.E., 1988. On the mechanics of economic development. Journal of Monetary Economics 22 (1), 3–42] is enriched with people having the opportunity to optimally allocate a fraction of their time to non-productive activities (‘leisure’). It is found that the chosen amount of leisure reduces the steady-state rate of growth of per capita output. This implies that the association between income and welfare may not be as strong as it is usually assumed to be. The optimal allocation of time among activities depends on some of the parameters and the marginal product of physical capital per capita.     

On the time allocation of married couples since 1960

In the last half a century, married females more than doubled their workforce participation and significantly reduced their time spent on home production. Using a model of family decision making with home production and individual earnings heterogeneity, we subject two prominent explanations for this aggregate change, namely, the evolution of the gender earnings gap and the cost of home appliances, to quantitative tests with respect to changes in participation for disaggregated groups of couples and trends in time spent in leisure and home production activities. We find that both forces are needed to understand the evolution of married female time allocation over time, although the falling cost of home appliances is a dominant explanation for the time allocation outside of workplace, while the gender earnings gap is the dominant explanation for the workforce participation decision.     

教育、闲暇与经济增长--理论模型与实证研究

本文通过把消费者时间分为工作时间、教育时间、闲暇时间,重点扩展了闲暇时间对人力资本积累作用和技术进步的外部性,将闲暇时间和教育时间同时引入经济增长模型中分析了两种时间对经济增长的影响和最优平衡增长路径.随后进行了实证研究,结果表明:我国教育时间(即人力资本投资)对中国经济增长有很大的拉动作用,同时,积极健康的闲暇活动能够促进经济增长,但是由于我国处于工业化阶段,对闲暇的偏好还很低,总体上闲暇时间对我国经济增长有微弱的抑制作用.因此,合理安排闲暇活动和正规教育活动对我国经济增长有重要意义.     

AN EMPIRICAL NOTE ON COMMUTING DISTANCE AND SLEEP DURING WORKWEEK AND WEEKEND

The author uses six years of large‐scale panel survey data for Germany to analyse the nexus between commuting distance from the place of residence to the workplace and quantity of sleep. Pooled and individual fixed‐effects regressions indicate that workers with longer commuting distance sleep significantly less per night during the workweek, but not less during the weekend. A one kilometer longer commuting distance is on average correlated with 0.0035 (pooled) and 0.0011 (fixed‐effects) hours less sleep per night during the workweek. As commuting seems to affect sleep quantity, it might negatively affect health and time allocation for other leisure activities.     

Spending Time and Money within the Household*

We consider, both theoretically and empirically, the allocation of time and money within the household. The research question is whether a married person who enjoys more leisure than their partner also receives more consumption (which seems to indicate the outcome of power within the household) or receives less consumption (which seems to indicate differing intrahousehold preferences). We develop a simple parametric structural model with household production that is tested on survey data. We find that relative wages have an impact on power. For leisure, this effect is dominated by a conventional wage effect, in which the partner who has the higher wage takes less leisure.     

The Impact of Non-Labor Income Given Job Heterogeneity on Household Time Allocation: The Evidence from China

This paper proposes a theoretical framework based on new household economic theories. A dataset from the 2006 China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) is used. Given heterogeneity in major family members’ jobs, the effect of non-labor income on household time allocation is discussed under two scenarios: jobs with flexible work hours and jobs with fixed work hours in the market. Based on the nature of the employer the major family member works for, employers can be categorized into four categories: government-owned, family contract, privately-owned, and foreign-funded. Each of the four categories is used for dissecting the data into different sets for analysis by category. The results imply that job heterogeneity is significantly correlated to household time allocation. An increase in non-labor income results in a decrease in the time allocated to housework for all households. However, leisure time is allocated differently among different households due to job heterogeneity. An increase in non-labor income leads to less leisure time for households working for government-owned or foreign-funded enterprises, and more leisure time for households working for family contract or privately-owned enterprises.     

大连城市居民周末休闲时间的利用特征

本文利用大连居民日常生活行为调查的结果,在比较居民工作日与周末休闲活动的基本特征基础上,从个人属性、社会属性和空间属性角度,对大连市居民周末休闲特征进行了较为详细的分析。分析中对居民社会属性与其休闲时间利用─—尤其是活动方式的选择──进行了相关分析,并引入时间地理学方法描画了居民周末活动路径,为城市休闲规划提供了基础知识。     

Loafing or learning?—the demand for informal education

Using detailed time use data for Germany a positive correlation is found between the level of schooling and time investments in informal education. Two hypotheses explain this observation: (1) highly educated people have higher opportunity costs of their leisure time and thus prefer leisure activities which add to their market productivity (wage effect) and (2) highly educated people have a preference for ‘high quality’ leisure (taste effect). The demand for informal education is derived in a household production model accounting for both explanations. An empirical investigation finds evidence for both effects with the taste effect being more important.     

“农民工”休闲生活的特点及原因分析——来自温州市鹿城工业区的调查

从农民工的闲暇时间占有量、休闲活动参与水平和参与结构等方面考察农民工的休闲生活,并比较农民工、农民和市民这“三元社会结构”的休闲生活差异,探讨农民工这一过渡性社会结构的休闲特征,分析农民工休闲特征的形成原因,提出了建议。     

基于人—时—空视角下的中国休闲活动演变探析

在中国悠久历史进程中,休闲受社会制度、生产力发展、科技水平、文化宗教等影响下,休闲活动在不断发生变化。以“人－时－空”这一三维变化为视角,以时间发展为轴线,分析了我国休闲活动群体变化和空间演变规律。究其原因,主要是因为各时期各阶层身份、经济、文化、政策等不同,其中,人是主要的演变因素,而时间是客观存在的参照物,空间则是由人和时间的变化而引起的休闲空间变化以至于内容的变化。最后从休闲群体、休闲空间和休闲内容总结了演变特点。     

A Gendered Model of the Peasant Household: Time poverty and Farm Production in Rural Mozambique

Using insights from a case study on the allocation of labor in subsistence households in Mozambique, this study develops a conceptual framework for examining linkages between time poverty and farm production. An unexpected event such as a health crisis increases the demand for labor provided by women, thus making them more time poor. The model and numerical simulations show that a deterioration in a woman's time constraint will have an adverse effect on agricultural output of the household. This occurs because most women respond to an increase in household work by reducing their work hours on the farm and by reducing their leisure time. The latter outcome is expected to have a negative effect on women's physical and mental health, which will then cause a decline in their productivity on the farm.     

地域休闲文化与休闲产业的关联优化选择--以武汉地域休闲文化为例

中国社会消费出现了与世界趋同的趋势。消费者需求从生存、发展到自我实现的途径在很大程度上是通过有效消费休闲方式与产品实现的。本文分析了武汉市现代公共休闲景观、现代商业购物休闲环境和娱乐休闲。提出应以差异性和多样性的地域文化作为休闲经济的来源和实现形式,以有地域特色的人力资源和文化资源禀赋来提升武汉休闲产业的比较优势,促成生产与休闲消费间的良性互动。     

深圳市民周末休闲活动的空间结构

休闲是现代城市生活中与工作相提并论的一种生活方式。休闲活动在受到城市经济,社会因素影响的同时,也深刻地影响着城市的空间结构和形态。本文以深圳市民活动日志调查为基础,应用时间地理学方法,旨在寻找深圳市民周末休闲活动的空间特征以及居民休闲行为影响下的城市空间结构特征。本文提出了深圳市民周末休闲活动的四圈层二集中带的空间结构模式,同时分析在居民个人属性与休闲空间之间的相互关系。     

Progressive Taxation and the Life-Cycle Model: An Application of the Theory of Firm*

In the presence of a progressive consumption (wage income) lax the marginal cost of consumption (leisure) is rising and* the life-cycle allocation problem of an individual is presentable in the framework of a monopsony. Although the progressive taxes do not in general alter the qualitative nature of standard results on life-cycle theory, their quantitative implications are serious. In contrast to the equivalence between proportional consumption and wage income taxes, the effects of the two progressive taxes on the life-cycle consumption and labour supply allocation decision are not only different but in most cases also in opposite directions.     

社会资本的经济增长效应

全面而准确地探究社会资本对长期经济增长的影响机制,对提升社会资本在区域经济发展中的地位具有重大的现实意义,但传统的内生增长模型忽略了时间配置对社会资本积累与居民效用的影响.文章将社会资本积累过程内生化,构建了纳入社会资本的水平创新增长模型,综合考虑社会资本和闲暇时间对经济增长的非单调性影响,通过数值模拟发现:社会资本对经济增长具有边际效应递减的促进作用;而闲暇时间与经济增长之间呈现倒U形关系,即适当地增加闲暇时间有利于社会资本积累.文章还基于结构型社会资本的网络嵌入性特征,构建了地级市层面的社会资本测度指标,以验证社会资本具备生产要素的属性.实证结果表明:社会资本对经济增长具有显著的正向影响,其促进作用随着区域内城市经济发展水平的提高而提升;中西部地区社会资本的产出效率高于东部地区,从而间接反映了东部地区社会资本过度集聚的现状;投资水平与技术进步是社会资本影响经济增长的两条重要途径.上述结论为明晰社会资本的经济属性、激发社会资本的经济效益、推动城市集群协调发展以及缩小地区差异提供了有益的借鉴.     

A Two-Sector Model of Endogenous Growth with Leisure

This paper analyses the equilibrium dynamics of an endogenous growth model with physical and human capital in which leisure enters the utility function. The inclusion of leisure introduces a potential source of non-convexities in our optimization problem and leads to the possible existence of multiple balanced growth paths. This multiplicity of optimal stationary solutions is linked to the assumption that education has no effect on the quality of leisure, and hence a relatively more educated economy may choose to grow faster, and devote more time to income-directed activities. To characterize the set of optimal solutions in our non-concave optimization framework we develop a new method of analysis that should be of interest in related applications.     

闲暇如何影响经济增长?——幸福感与经济效率关系的理论研究与仿真模拟

文章以闲暇促进效用(幸福感)的提升为线索,以闲暇对经济效率的积极作用为基础,构建内生增长模型展开分析。结果显示,长期增长率由闲暇的跨期替代弹性和边际效率增长率决定。前者表征闲暇对生产是替代的还是互补的,后者代表闲暇对效率的动态作用。文章还对此结论做了数值仿真,结果显示,当闲暇对效率的作用为负时,如果其他条件不变,经济最终收敛或出现衰退。文章最后在对不同情形下闲暇对内生增长的作用进行总结和分析的基础上,提出努力推动国民的闲暇活动具有积极健康的内涵,有利于提高经济效率和幸福感,进而促进经济的持续增长。     

REVENUE DIVERGENCE AND COMPETITIVE BALANCE IN A DIVISIONAL SPORTS LEAGUE

The North American model of resource allocation in professional sports leagues is adapted for English (association) football. Comparisons are drawn between the equilibrium allocations of playing talent under objective functions of profit maximisation and win percent maximisation subject to a financial constraint. Empirical revenue functions are reported for 1926–1999. These indicate a shift in the composition of demand favouring big‐city teams and an increase in the sensitivity of revenue to performance. An analysis of match results in the FA Cup suggests an increase in competitive imbalance between teams at different levels of the league's divisional hierarchy, as the theory suggests.