IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/1638.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Hours Restrictions and Labor Supply

Author

Listed:
  • William T. Dickens
  • Shelly J. Lundberg

Abstract

This study presents a model of labor supply in which individuals may face constraints on their choice of work hours, and analyzes the sensitivity of parameter estimates and policy conclusions to the usual assumption of unrestricted choice. We set up the labor supply decision asa discrete choice problem, where each worker faces a finite number of employment opportunities, each offering fixed hours of work.The distribution from which these are drawn, as well as the number of draws, is estimated along with the behavioral parameters of individual labor supply.The standard model with unconstrained hours appears as a special case where the number of draws approaches infinity. We estimate the mean absolute difference between desired and actual work hours to be about ten hours perweek. The results strongly support the notion that hours choices are constrained, and suggest that models which ignore restrictions on hours worked may yield biased estimates of the wage elasticity of desired hours. Further, we suggest that analysis of policies such as income transfers and the flat rate tax which do not consider their effects on the distribution of hours offered may be very misleading.

Suggested Citation

  • William T. Dickens & Shelly J. Lundberg, 1985. "Hours Restrictions and Labor Supply," NBER Working Papers 1638, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1638
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w1638.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alan L. Gustman & Thomas L. Steinmeier, 1984. "Partial Retirement and the Analysis of Retirement Behavior," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 37(3), pages 403-415, April.
    2. John M. Abowd & Orley C. Ashenfelter, 1981. "Anticipated Unemployment, Temporary Layoffs, and Compensating Wage Differentials," NBER Chapters, in: Studies in Labor Markets, pages 141-170, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Lundberg, Shelly J, 1985. "Tied Wage-Hours Offers and the Endogeneity of Wages," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(3), pages 405-410, August.
    4. Rosen, Sherwin, 2007. "Studies in Labor Markets," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226726304, December.
    5. Moffitt, Robert, 1982. "The Tobit Model, Hours of Work and Institutional Constraints," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 64(3), pages 510-515, August.
    6. Rosen, Harvey S, 1976. "Taxes in a Labor Supply Model with Joint Wage-Hours Determination," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(3), pages 485-507, May.
    7. Deaton, Angus & Meullbauer, John, 1981. "Functional Forms for Labor Supply and Commodity Demands with and without Quantity Restrictions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1521-1532, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Joseph G. Altonji & Christina H. Paxson, 1992. "Labor Supply, Hours Constraints, and Job Mobility," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 27(2), pages 256-278.
    2. Joseph G. Altonji & Emiko Usui, 2007. "Work Hours, Wages, and Vacation Leave," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 60(3), pages 408-428, April.
    3. repec:eee:labchp:v:1:y:1986:i:c:p:3-102 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Rosen, Sherwin, 1985. "Implicit Contracts: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 23(3), pages 1144-1175, September.
    5. Assaad, Ragui & Tunali, Insan, 2002. "Wage formation and recurrent unemployment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 17-61, February.
    6. Richard Blundell & Mike Brewer & Marco Francesconi, 2008. "Job Changes and Hours Changes: Understanding the Path of Labor Supply Adjustment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(3), pages 421-453, July.
    7. Pinheiro, Roberto & Visschers, Ludo, 2015. "Unemployment risk and wage differentials," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 397-424.
    8. Daniel Aaronson & Eric French, 2004. "The Effect of Part-Time Work on Wages: Evidence from the Social Security Rules," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(2), pages 329-352, April.
    9. Florian S. Peters & Alexander F. Wagner, 2014. "The Executive Turnover Risk Premium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(4), pages 1529-1563, August.
    10. Elliott, Robert F. & Sandy, Robert, 1998. "Adam Smith may have been right after all: A new approach to the analysis of compensating differentials," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 127-131, April.
    11. Shaw, Kathryn L, 1996. "An Empirical Analysis of Risk Aversion and Income Growth," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(4), pages 626-653, October.
    12. Kerwin Kofi Charles & Philip Decicca, 2007. "Hours Flexibility And Retirement," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 45(2), pages 251-267, April.
    13. Wei, Chunyan & Hu, Shiyang & Chen, Feng, 2020. "Do political connection disruptions increase labor costs in a government-dominated market? Evidence from publicly listed companies in China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    14. Emilia Del Bono & Andrea Weber, 2008. "Do Wages Compensate for Anticipated Working Time Restrictions? Evidence from Seasonal Employment in Austria," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(1), pages 181-221.
    15. repec:eee:labchp:v:2:y:1986:i:c:p:789-848 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Margarita Katsimi, 2008. "Training, Job Security And Incentive Wages," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 55(1), pages 67-78, February.
    17. Richard Blundell & Mike Brewer & Marco Francesconi, 2005. "Job changes, hours changes and labour market flexibility: panel data evidence for Britain," IFS Working Papers W05/12, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    18. Abowd, John M & Card, David, 1987. "Intertemporal Labor Supply and Long-term Employment Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(1), pages 50-68, March.
    19. Janet Currie & Mehdi Farsi & W. Bentley Macleod, 2005. "Cut to the Bone? Hospital Takeovers and Nurse Employment Contracts," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 58(3), pages 471-493, April.
    20. Ben-Nasr, Hamdi, 2019. "Do unemployment benefits affect the choice of debt source?11I would like to acknowledge the financial support from Qatar University, QUUG-CBE-DFE-17/18-6," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 88-107.
    21. Daniel Aaronson & Eric French, 2009. "The Effects of Progressive Taxation on Labor Supply when Hours and Wages Are Jointly Determined," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(2).
    22. Barlevy, Gadi, 2000. "Job destruction and the experiences of displaced workers: A comment," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 129-136, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1638. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.