Labor Supply: Are the Income and Substitution Effects Both Large or Both Small?
Abstract
Labor supply is unresponsive to permanent changes in wage rates. Thus, income and substitution effects cancel, but are they both close to zero or both large? This paper develops a theory of labor supply where income and substitution effects cancel, taking into account optimization over time, fixed costs of going to work, and interactions of labor supply decisions within the household. The paper then applies this theory to survey evidence on the response of labor supply to a large wealth shock. The evidence implies that the constant marginal utility of wealth (Frisch) elasticity of labor supply is about one.Download Info
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 14208.Length:
Date of creation: Jul 2008
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14208
Note: EFG LS ME
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Related research
Keywords:Find related papers by JEL classification:
- C42 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Survey Methods
- E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution
- J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2008-08-06 (All new papers)
- NEP-LAB-2008-08-06 (Labour Economics)
- NEP-LTV-2008-08-06 (Unemployment, Inequality & Poverty)
- NEP-MAC-2008-08-06 (Macroeconomics)
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