Home Production Market Production and the Changing Allocation of Consumption Expenditures on Service

This article studies the determinants of the quantity of services purchased by consumers in the US over the period 1949–85. Price and income elasticities useful for assessing the likely future demand for services are derived. The theoretical model and empirical estimates differ from traditional approaches by considering, as parameters in the demand function, changes in male and female labour force participation rates and hours worked. One interesting implication of this model is that it permits estimating the shifr of home production of services into market production and therefore an empirical assessment of the degree to which national income growth has been overestimated in the post- war years.