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.     

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.     

Exhaustible resources,technology choice and industrialization of developing countries

How should the world economy adapt to the increased demand for exhaustible resources from countries like China and India? To address that issue, this paper presents a dynamic model of the world economy with two technologies for production; a resource technology, which uses an exhaustible resource as an input and an alternative technology, which does not. I find that both the time path of resource extraction and the adoption of the alternative technology depend on the optimal allocation of capital across the technologies, and on the size of the capital stock in relation to the resource stock. In particular, if the capital stock is low, only the resource technology is used initially and the alternative technology is adopted with a delay. Next, I use the model to analyze the effects of industrialization of developing countries on the extraction of oil and technology choice for energy production. As a result of industrialization, the alternative technology for energy production is adopted earlier.     

Individualism and the adoption of clean energy technology

Why do 20% of Swedes report having adopted a clean energy system while the corresponding share of Spaniards equals 0.4%? Using data for about 25,000 individuals across 33 countries, this study tests which cultural trait, individualism or collectivism, is associated with greater levels of clean technology adoption. Our fractional probit estimates suggest that individualistic individuals are more inclined to adopt clean energy systems for home and transport purposes. In particular, the adoption probability rises by an estimated 2% if a person exhibits individualistic values. This finding is not driven by country-specific tax or subsidy policies or market-specific determinants and is robust to controlling for individual and household characteristics, attitudes, social and personal norms and other significant dimensions of cultural differences. The results, therefore, facilitate an understanding of how the decision to adopt clean energy technologies can be driven by cultural factors.     

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.     

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。     

Market Work, Home Work, and Taxes: A Cross-Country Analysis

This paper uses a simple model of labor supply extended to allow for home production to understand the extent to which differences in taxes can account for differences in time allocations between the US and Europe. Once home production is included, the elasticity of substitution between consumption and leisure is almost irrelevant in determining the response of market hours to higher taxes. But to account for observed differences in leisure and time spent in home production, one still requires a relatively large elasticity of substitution between consumption and leisure, combined with a relatively small elasticity of substitution between time and goods in home production.     

Can consumption of convenience products reveal the opportunity cost of time?

I examine how people’s consumption of time-saving products can be used to estimate the shadow value of time. I use a household production model to motivate an empirical approach that can be implemented using survey data.     

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.     

The market-based dissemination of energy-access technologies as a business model for rural entrepreneurs: Evidence from Kenya

Improving access to more modern forms of energy requires supply chains that reach further into rural areas. This paper studies a supply-side intervention intended to foster last-mile distribution of energy-access technologies through local small-scale entrepreneurship. We use a staggered-implementation evaluation design to assess the impact on employment and income outcomes of the intervention, which is a large-scale program in Kenya that supports the diffusion of improved cookstoves and small solar products. The results demonstrate how trained entrepreneurs intensify and diversify their income-generating activities, often by shifting away from subsistence farming as a main source of income. For cookstove entrepreneurs, this goes along with improvements in individual and household incomes as well as perceived economic well-being. Our estimates suggest that impacts do not only differ between the two technologies but also across subgroups including gender, age, and baseline occupation. Our findings substantiate that market-based interventions can foster energy access in rural areas by supporting the establishment of local businesses. We highlight several contextual factors that are of relevance when considering the adoption of this approach.     

Substitution between leisure activities: a quasi-natural experiment using sports viewing and cinema attendance

The allocation of time between leisure activities and work has been extensively analysed in academic literature. However, leisure time is limited and there may not be sufficient time to enjoy all the leisure activities desired. Hence, this article considers the allocation of time between substitute leisure activities. International football tournaments provide an opportunity to consider consumers’ preferences for watching football and films in a quasi-natural experimental setting. A trade-off between these leisure activities is identified using a difference-in-difference methodology. Using an original, four-country data set, a large and robust negative effect of mega sports events on cinema admissions is identified.     

Domestic technology,consumption economies of scale and poverty: evidence from Sri Lanka

While it is well known that new technologies enhance consumer welfare, the manner in which these technologies impact the ability to realize economies of scale in consumption is not well understood. We use Sri Lankan household data to examine how the adoption of new technologies by households positively impacts their ability to achieve household economies of scale. This suggests that new technologies not only deliver a greater variety of consumption goods to consumers, but they may also play an important role in enabling large households to escape poverty by lowering the per-capita costs of maintaining a given standard of living. Given the importance of consumption economies of scale in the measurement of poverty, this study provides some insights on the extent to which the number of poor households changes when food consumption scale economies due to technology adoption in the domestic sphere are incorporated.     

Hand pollination,mass spraying,and hybrid seedlings: Do these technologies affect the welfare of smallholder cocoa farmers in Ghana?

Adoption of cocoa production technologies has the potential to improve productivity and welfare of smallholder producers in low-income countries. While studies investigating synergies in agricultural technologies are growing, empirical evidence on the determinants and impacts of adopting multiple cocoa production technologies on smallholder farmers' welfare is scarce. Therefore, this study contributes by analyzing the determinants and effects of adoption of multiple cocoa production technologies on the welfare of smallholder farmers in Ghana. To achieve this, we used the multinomial endogenous switching regression and multivalued inverse probability regression adjustment models to a random sample of 2233 cocoa farmers from Ghana. The results show that various socioeconomic characteristics (e.g., farmer's age and experience), resource constraints (e.g., land ownership and credit access), market-related factors (e.g., distance to the market), and production shocks (e.g., rainfall) influence the adoption of multiple cocoa production technologies. Furthermore, the results reveal that adopting multiple production technologies significantly improves cocoa yields, gross income, per capita consumption expenditure, and reduces household food insecurity. Therefore, policies, such as financial support, need to be aimed at improving and strengthening smallholder cocoa producers' capacity to adopt synergistic conventional and non-conventional cocoa production technologies to maximize smallholder farmers' welfare.     

The effectiveness of home energy audits: A case study of Jackson,Wyoming

This study examines the factors that influence households to adopt modifications recommended by home energy audits and whether these audits lead to significant reductions in electricity use. Household decisions after the audits are recorded along with the corresponding recommended modifications and the offers for co-funding. A discrete choice model of the household decision after the audit is estimated. The results indicate that the potential improvement in heating efficiency from the proposed modifications increase the probability of implementing conservation measures. Co-funding offers also significantly raise the odds of accepting the modifications but are relatively less important than anticipated efficiency improvements. Several approaches are used to determine whether and how much energy is saved after the audits. Electricity demand models are estimated using data two years before and after each household audit. For households who decide to modify their houses after the audit, monthly average electricity use per square foot decreases 7%. While there is an estimated 2% reduction in electricity use attributed to the audit by households who decided not to adopt the proposed modifications, this reduction is not statistically significant, casting doubt on the presence of modifications in behavior from the audit information itself. For all households audited, the results from the electricity demand models suggest that the LVE home energy audit program reduced household electricity use 4.7%. In contrast, a differences-in-differences approach using synthetic control groups based upon a smaller but still sizeable sample of 2000 observations finds that home energy audits reduce household electricity use by more than 10%. Overall, these findings suggest that home audits result in modest but significant reductions in energy use and that co-funding encourages investments that otherwise may not be privately optimal.     

SIMULTANEOUS USES OF TIME IN HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTION

A household production function is developed which allows for persons to be engaged in more than one activity at a point in time. Labour inputs are scaled back when two activities are being undertaken. Data from the 1987 Australian Time Use Survey is used to estimate equations explaining input hours into home production by adult members of the household. One implication of the empirical results is that when two activities are being undertaken simultaneously input hours on the activity coded as "primary" and the input hours on the activity coded as "secondary" should each have a weight of one-half.     

Utility and production externalities, equilibrium efficiency and leisure specification

This paper analyzes the implications that the specification of the leisure activity has on the equilibrium efficiency in a two-sector endogenous growth model with human capital accumulation. We consider external effects of consumption and leisure in utility, and sector-specific externalities associated to physical and human capital in production. The optimal tax policy to correct for the distortions caused by the externalities is characterized under all the typical leisure specifications considered in the literature: home production, quality time and raw time. We show that the optimal policy depends markedly on the leisure specification.     

Adoption of safer irrigation technologies and cropping patterns: Evidence from Southern Ghana

The new irrigation technologies introduced in sub-Saharan Africa aim at ensuring safer vegetable production when untreated waste water is used as irrigation water. This paper examines the adoption of safer irrigation technologies and crop choices among vegetable farmers, using cross-section data from urban Kumasi in Ghana. The study employed a two-stage conditional maximum likelihood approach to examine the impact of crop choices and farm-level characteristics on the adoption of safer irrigation technologies. The empirical results indicate that apart from household and farm characteristics such as access to extension agents, belonging to a farmer's organization and education, cropping patterns tend to influence adoption of irrigation technologies for safer vegetable production.     

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.     

ACCOUNTING FOR NONMARKET HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTION WITHIN A NATIONAL ACCOUNTS FRAMEWORK

The satellite accounts illustrated in this paper reflect the household's role as a producer and an investor in durables as well as a consumer by modifying the NIPA's to (1) incorporate the value of nonmarket (unpaid) household work into GDP; and (2) treat expenditures on consumer durables as investment and measure the value of the services those durables provide. Additionally, an Input–Output (I–O) model highlights the household's functions as a producer and investor in much greater detail for the year 1992 by incorporating a household industry for each time-use activity and by showing the inputs to and outputs from each household industry's production.