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Hours and Wages

Author

Listed:
  • Alexander Bick
  • Adam Blandin
  • Richard Rogerson

Abstract

We document two robust features of the cross-sectional distribution of usual weekly hours and hourly wages. First, usual weekly hours are heavily concentrated around 40 hours, while at the same time a substantial share of total hours come from individuals who work more than 50 hours. Second, mean hourly wages are nonmonotonic across the usual hours distribution, with a peak at 50 hours. We develop and estimate a model of labor supply to account for these features. The novel feature of our model is that earnings are nonlinear in hours, with the extent of nonlinearity varying over the hours distribution. Our estimates imply significant wage penalties for people who deviate from 40 hours in either direction, leading to a large mass of people who work 40 hours and are not very responsive to shocks. This has important implications for the role of labor supply as a mechanism for self-insurance in a standard heterogeneous-agent incomplete-markets model and for empirical strategies designed to estimate labor supply parameters.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexander Bick & Adam Blandin & Richard Rogerson, 2022. "Hours and Wages," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 137(3), pages 1901-1962.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:137:y:2022:i:3:p:1901-1962.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/qje/qjac005
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    Cited by:

    1. Etienne Lalé, 2025. "Search and multiple jobholding," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 80(3), pages 891-939, November.
    2. John Bailey Jones & Yue Li, 2023. "Social Security Reform with Heterogeneous Mortality," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 48, pages 320-344, April.
    3. Sekyu Choi & Benjamin Villena-Roldan & Nincen Figueroa, 2025. "Posted Wage Cyclicality: Evidence from High-Quality Vacancy Data," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 25/812, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    4. Paula A. Calvo & Ilse Lindenlaub & Ana Reynoso, 2021. "Marriage Market and Labor Market Sorting," NBER Working Papers 28883, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Iván Fernández‐Val & Aico van Vuuren & Francis Vella & Franco Peracchi, 2024. "Hours worked and the US distribution of real annual earnings 1976–2019," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(4), pages 659-678, June.
    6. Iván Fernández‐Val & Aico van Vuuren & Francis Vella & Franco Peracchi, 2024. "Hours worked and the US distribution of real annual earnings 1976–2019," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(4), pages 659-678, June.
    7. Alon, Titan & Doepke, Matthias & Olmstead-Rumsey, Jane & Tertilt, Michèle, 2020. "This Time It's Different: The Role of Women's Employment in a Pandemic Recession," IZA Discussion Papers 13562, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Jeffrey T. Denning & Brian A. Jacob & Lars J. Lefgren & Christian vom Lehn, 2022. "The Return to Hours Worked within and across Occupations: Implications for the Gender Wage Gap," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 75(5), pages 1321-1347, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

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