Life-cycle Labor Supply Research Articles

On the Covariance Structure of Earnings and Hours Changes

This paper presents an empirical analysis of individual earnings and hours data from three different longitudinal surveys. In the first part of the paper we catalog the main features of the covariance structure of earnings and hours changes. We find that this structure is very similar across data sets, and may be adequately summarized by a simple components-of-variance model. In the second part of the paper we offer an interpretation of this model in terms of a simple life-cycle labor supply model

Econometric approaches to the specification of life-cycle labour supply and commodity demand behaviour

Many of the recently developed alternative econometric approaches to the construction and estimation of life-cycle consistent models using individual data can be viewed as alternative choices for conditioning variables that summarise past decisions and future anticipations. By ingenious choice of this conditioning variable and by exploitation of the duality relationships between the alternative specifications, many currently available microdata sets can be used for the estimation of life-cycle consistent models. We review alternative approaches and highlight their stochastic properties and implicit preference restrictions. Indeed, empirical specifications that are parameterised in a form of direct theoretical interest often can be shown to be unnecessarily restrictive, while dual representations may provide more flexible econometric models. These results indicate the particular advantages of different types of data in retrieving life-cycle consistent preference parameters and the most appropriate and flexible econometric approach for each type of data. We develop a methodology for relaxing the intertemporal separability assumption and consider the advantages and disadvantages of alternative approaches in this framework.

THE ROLE OF ASSETS IN LABOR SUPPLY FUNCTIONS

This paper examines the argument advanced by Smith (1977) that it is inappropriate to include current assets in labor supply functions, under the assumption that a life-cycle model underlies both the asset accumulation process and the labor supply process. It is shown that on a theoretical level current labor supply may still be viewed as a function of current assets. It is also demonstrated that in empirical work based upon a life-cycle labor supply model, it may or may not be appropriate to use current assets or current wealth as an independent variable in a labor supply regression

Life-Cycle Labor Supply and Fertility: Causal Inferences from Household Models

Although estimates of the fertility-labor supply relationship abound, a full appreciation of the interpretation of such estimates has been lacking, regardless of the empirical strategy employed. This paper attempts to elucidate, within the context of a life-cycle decision-making process, the information contained in the estimated association between fertility and labor supply as calculated from "single" and "simultaneous-equations" estimation techniques. We also present a statistical methodology based upon the occurrence of twins in the first pregnancy and provide estimates, using that methodology, of the extent to which women's life-cycle labor supply decisions respond to exogenous (and, in this case, unanticipated) extra children.

The Individual’s Supply of Skill and Hours of Work, and Demand for Training

A number of models of the individual’s optimal allocation of time over his life between leisure, labor supply and training have recently been devised. Their analysis is a rich source of predictions about individual behaviour — effects of taxes, wealth, tastes, ability, etc. But this information is contained in the comparative dynamics of the models, of which relatively little is known. This paper is an attempt to remedy part of the deficiency : the model of Blinder & Weiss (1976) is examined in detail by means of numerical simulations, which offer several useful insights and reveal various strengths and weaknesses of this construction.There are three principal areas where the comparative dynamics of the model give interesting results.(1) Usually, analysis of the individual’s labour supply takes the wage rate as exogenous and is static. A model of optimal life-cycle labour supply and human capital accumulation makes both hours of work and the wage rate endogenous, and puts them in a dynamic context. It suggests that both may change in response to taxes, i.e., taxes may be shifted partly through the work/leisure choice and partly through work/training choices, and invites comparison of the sizes of the two effects. If the effects of taxes on human capital investment are large, then analysis of the relative efficiency of alternative tax schemes which exclude these effects may be seriously misleading.

Effects of Child-Care Programs on Women's Work Effort

In recent years, Congress has considered a variety of work-subsidy programs designed to encourage work among welfare recipients. Many of these programs would subsidize individuals only if they work some minimum number of hours. Commonly used techniques cannot give direct answers to relevant policy questions since a tied offer is involved, and hence the offer cannot be treated as a simple wage change. The essence of the problem involves utility comparisons between two or more discrete alternatives. Such comparisons inherently require information about consumer preferences in a way not easily obtained from ordinary labor-supply functions. To make such comparisons, I present a method for directly estimating consumer indifference surfaces between money income and nonmarket time. Once these surfaces are determined, they can be used to compare a variety of alternative programs to investigate whether or not there is scope for Pareto-optimal redistribution of income transfers and time, improving the general level of welfare of the community at large without reducing the welfare of individuals receiving income transfers. Knowledge of these indifference surfaces allows us to estimate reservation wages to estimate the value of nonworking-women's time (Gronau 1973), laborforce participation functions, hours-of-work functions, and welfare losses due to income tax programs (Harberger 1964). I demonstrate that direct estimation of indifference surfaces allows us, at least in principle, to relax