The present paper examines several issues involved in expanding national economic accounts and quantitative social indicators to include the "consumption" of time. The first part examines this question in the context of the standard national economic accounts. It derives equilibrium conditions for consumer behavior with market and non-market consumption along with intrinsic values of time in different activities. Using a standard index-number approach, it shows that the growth of real income can be approximated by a weighted average of productivity growth rates in market and non-market productivity and that the valuation of hours drops out of the formula. The second part of the paper examines the role of quantitative social indicators using the approach of hedonic psychology to value time in different activities. It concludes that hedonic measures do not meet the standards for a interpersonally cardinal variable that are required to construct a meaningful quantitative social indicator.
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Find related papers by JEL classification: J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth
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