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Trend in Hours: The U.S. from 1900 to 1950

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Abstract

During the first half of the 20th century the workweek in the United States declined, and the distribution of hours across wage deciles narrowed. At the same time, the distribution of wages narrowed too. The hypothesis proposed is (i) Households have access to an increasing number of leisure activities which enhance the value of non-market time; (ii) The rise of education accounts for the narrowing of the wage and hours distribution. Such mechanisms, embedded into a neoclassical growth model, quantitatively account for the observations. The rise in wages is the main contributor to the decline in hours. The decline in the price of leisure goods is second in importance, yet its contribution is large.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Economie d'Avant Garde in its series Economie d'Avant Garde Research Reports with number 11.

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Length: 36 pages
Date of creation: Jul 2005
Date of revision: Nov 2005
Handle: RePEc:eag:rereps:11

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Web page: http://www.jeremygreenwood.net/EAG.htm

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Keywords: Hours worked; leisure; home production; technological progress;

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References

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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Diego Restuccia & Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2012. "A Century of Human Capital and Hours," Working Papers tecipa-460, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
  2. Vinod Mishra & Russell Smyth, 2012. "Work Hours in Chinese Enterprises: Evidence From Matched Employer-Employee Data," Monash Economics Working Papers 10-12, Monash University, Department of Economics.
  3. Mark Aguiar & Erik Hurst, 2006. "Measuring Trends in Leisure: The Allocation of Time Over Five Decades," NBER Working Papers 12082, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Moshe Hazan, 2009. "Longevity and Lifetime Labor Supply: Evidence and Implications," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(6), pages 1829-1863, November.
  5. Hazan, Moshe, 2006. "Longevity and Lifetime Labour Input: Data and Implications," CEPR Discussion Papers 5963, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  6. Bar, Michael & Leukhina, Oksana, 2011. "On the time allocation of married couples since 1960," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 491-510.
  7. Yukawa, Shiho, 2012. "教養娯楽価格が出産に与える影響
    [The Effect of Recreational Goods Price on Fertility]    ," MPRA Paper 35808, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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