IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/5973.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Demand for Hours of Labor: Direct Evidence from California

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel S. Hamermesh
  • Stephen J. Trejo

Abstract

For many years California has required that most women receive time-and-a-half for hours of work beyond 8 in a given day. In 1980 this daily overtime penalty was extended to men. This change provides a unique opportunity to estimate the impact of an exogenous increase in the relative price of a marginal hour of labor on the demand for hours of work. Analyzing Current Population Survey data from 1973 and 1985, we find that the overtime penalty substantially reduced the amount of daily overtime worked by California men compared to men in other states and to women in California. Our estimates imply that the price elasticity of demand for overtime hours is at least -0.70.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel S. Hamermesh & Stephen J. Trejo, 1997. "The Demand for Hours of Labor: Direct Evidence from California," NBER Working Papers 5973, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5973
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w5973.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jennifer Hunt, 1996. "The Response of Wages and Actual Hours Worked to the Reduction of Standard Hours in Germany," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 138, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    2. Jennifer Hunt, 1996. "The Response of Wages and Actual Hours Worked to the Reductions of Standard Hours," NBER Working Papers 5716, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Carlos Medina D. & José Escobar R., 2007. "The Effects of Changes in the Legal Work Shift on Wages and Hours Worked in Colombia," Coyuntura Social 12866, Fedesarrollo.
    2. Tor Jacobson & Henry Ohlsson, 2000. "Working time, employment, and work sharing: Evidence from Sweden," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 169-187.
    3. Carlos Medina & José Escobar, 2006. "Changes in Daytime Hours of Work and Employment in Colombia," Borradores de Economia 2115, Banco de la Republica.
    4. Kapteyn, Arie & Kalwij, Adriaan & Zaidi, Asghar, 2004. "The myth of worksharing," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 293-313, June.
    5. Jennifer Hunt, 1999. "Has Work-Sharing Worked in Germany?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 117-148.
    6. Dur, Robert A. J., 2001. "Explaining unemployment trends in the Netherlands," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 161-168, February.
    7. Baek, Ehung Gi & Oh, Wankeun, 2004. "The short-run production effect of the reduction of working hours," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 123-144, January.
    8. Juha Kilponen & Pekka Sinko, 2005. "Taxation And Centralised Wage Setting: The Case Of Endogenous Labour Supply," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 52(4), pages 587-606, September.
    9. Marimon, Ramon & Zilibotti, Fabrizio, 2000. "Employment and distributional effects of restricting working time," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(7), pages 1291-1326, June.
    10. David M. Gray, 2002. "Early Retirement Programs and Wage Restraint: Empirical Evidence from France," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 55(3), pages 512-532, April.
    11. Börsch-Supan, Axel, 2002. "Reduction of Working Time: Does it Decrease Unemployment?," MEA discussion paper series 02003, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.
    12. Victoria Osuna & Jose-Victor Rios-Rull, 2003. "Implementing the 35 Hour Workweek by Means of Overtime Taxation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 6(1), pages 179-206, January.
    13. repec:aia:aiaswp:wp5 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Ángel Luis Martin Roman & Alfonso Moral de Blas, 2002. "Efectos de las variaciones en el tiempo de trabajo sobre la ocupación adolescente y juvenil en el sector industrial: un análisis regional," Revista de Estudios Regionales, Universidades Públicas de Andalucía, vol. 1, pages 51-77.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand

    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:5973. 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.