IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/trn/utwpde/0719.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Evolution of preferences and cross-country differences in time devoted to market work

Author

Listed:
  • Luigi Bonatti

Abstract

I model the hypothesis that preferences evolve and permanent differences in individual attitudes towards work emerge between two countries characterized initially by identical preferences as a result of a period in which only one of the two countries is subject to regulations constraining labor supply, or as a by-product of different tax rates on labor income. Hence, the elimination of these regulations may not allow the economy thus deregulated to converge to the same hours of market work per person of the other economy, and the long-run differential in market work between economies subject to different tax rates is amplified.

Suggested Citation

  • Luigi Bonatti, 2007. "Evolution of preferences and cross-country differences in time devoted to market work," Department of Economics Working Papers 0719, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
  • Handle: RePEc:trn:utwpde:0719
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.unitn.it/files/19_07_bonatti.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael C Burda & Daniel S Hamermesh & Philippe Weil, 2007. "Total Work, Gender and Social Norms," Working Papers hal-00972818, HAL.
    2. Alberto Alesina & Edward Glaeser & Bruce Sacerdote, 2005. "Work and Leisure in the U. S. and Europe: Why so Different?," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2068, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    3. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/8708 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Blanchard, Olivier & Wolfers, Justin, 2000. "The Role of Shocks and Institutions in the Rise of European Unemployment: The Aggregate Evidence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(462), pages 1-33, March.
    5. Thomas Aronsson & Tomas Sjögren, 2010. "Optimal income taxation and social norms in the labor market," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 17(1), pages 67-89, February.
    6. Michael C Burda & Daniel S Hamermesh & Philippe Weil, 2006. "Different but Equal: Total Work, Gender and Social Norms in the EU and US Time Use," Post-Print hal-01053588, HAL.
    7. Steven J. Davis & Magnus Henrekson, 2004. "Tax Effects on Work Activity, Industry Mix and Shadow Economy Size: Evidence from Rich-Country Comparisons," NBER Working Papers 10509, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Linda Bell & Richard Freeman, 1994. "Why Do Americans and Germans Work Different Hours?," NBER Working Papers 4808, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Blomquist, N. Soren, 1993. "Interdependent behavior and the effect of taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 211-218, June.
    10. Bell, Linda A. & Freeman, Richard B., 2001. "The incentive for working hard: explaining hours worked differences in the US and Germany," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 181-202, May.
    11. Mark Aguiar & Erik Hurst, 2007. "Measuring Trends in Leisure: The Allocation of Time Over Five Decades," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 969-1006.
    12. Samuel Bowles, 1998. "Endogenous Preferences: The Cultural Consequences of Markets and Other Economic Institutions," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(1), pages 75-111, March.
    13. Bisin, Alberto & Verdier, Thierry, 1998. "On the cultural transmission of preferences for social status," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 75-97, October.
    14. Olivier Blanchard, 2004. "The Economic Future of Europe," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(4), pages 3-26, Fall.
    15. Martin Binder & Uta-Maria Niederle, 2006. "Institutions as Determinants of Preference Change – A One Way Relation?," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2006-07, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    16. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/8708 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Bonatti, Luigi, 2008. "Evolution of preferences and cross-country differences in time devoted to market work," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 1341-1365, December.
    2. Sila, Urban, 2009. "Can family-support policies help explain differences in working hours across countries?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 28684, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Peter Frase & Janet Gornick, 2009. "The Time Divide in Cross-National Perspective: The Work Week, Gender and Education in 17 Countries," LIS Working papers 526, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    4. Kaitila, Ville, 2006. "Productivity, Hours Worked, and Tax/Benefit Systems in Europe and Beyond," Discussion Papers 1015, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    5. Kuroda, Sachiko, 2010. "Do Japanese Work Shorter Hours than before? Measuring trends in market work and leisure using 1976-2006 Japanese time-use survey," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 481-502, December.
    6. Michael Huberman & Chris Minns, 2005. "Hours of Work in Old and New Worlds: The Long View, 1870-2000," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp95, IIIS.
    7. Alberto Alesina & Michele Battisti & Joseph Zeira, 2018. "Technology and labor regulations: theory and evidence," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 41-78, March.
    8. Hui He & Kevin X.D. Huang & Lei Ning, 2021. "Why Do Americans Spend So Much More On Health Care Than Europeans?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 62(4), pages 1363-1399, November.
    9. Claudio Michelacci & Josep Pijoan-Mas, 2007. "The Effects of Labor Market Conditions on Working Time: The US-EU Experience," Working Papers wp2007_0705, CEMFI.
    10. Luigi BONATTI & Giulia FELICE, 2009. "Trade and growth in a two-country model with home production and uneven technological spillovers," Departmental Working Papers 2009-13, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    11. Ali Fakih, 2014. "Vacation Leave, Work Hours, and Wages: New Evidence from Linked Employer–Employee Data," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 28(4), pages 376-398, December.
    12. Behringer, Jan & Gonzalez Granda, Martin & van Treeck, Till, 2022. "Varieties of the rat race: Working hours in the age of abundance," ifso working paper series 17, University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute for Socioeconomics (ifso).
    13. Hansen, Jørgen Drud & Molana, Hassan & Montagna, Catia & Nielsen, Jørgen Ulff-Møller, 2012. "Work hours, social value of leisure and globalisation," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 317-326.
    14. Thomas Aronsson & James R. Walker, 2010. "Labor Supply, Tax Base and Public Policy in Sweden," NBER Chapters, in: Reforming the Welfare State: Recovery and Beyond in Sweden, pages 127-158, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Shigeki Kunieda, 2009. "Working Hours and Taxation," Japanese Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(2), pages 3-22.
    16. Indermit Gill & Johannes Koettl & Truman Packard, 2013. "Full employment: a distant dream for Europe," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 2(1), pages 1-34, December.
    17. Courard-Hauri, David, 2007. "Using Monte Carlo analysis to investigate the relationship between overconsumption and uncertain access to one's personal utility function," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 152-162, October.
    18. Richard Rogerson, 2008. "Structural Transformation and the Deterioration of European Labor Market Outcomes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(2), pages 235-259, April.
    19. Rafael Fernández & Enrique Palazuelos, 2009. "Labor productivity: a comparative analysis of the European Union and United States, for the period 1994-2007," Working Papers wp208, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    20. Alberto Alesina & Paola Giuliano, 2010. "The power of the family," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 93-125, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Endogenous growth; time allocation; endogenous preferences; labor-market regulations; labor taxes.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • O41 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models

    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:trn:utwpde:0719. 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: Luciano Andreozzi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/detreit.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.