While the employment effects of minimum wages are usually reported to be small (suggesting low substitutability between skill types), direct estimates suggest a much larger degree of substitutability. This article argues that this paradox is largely due to a bias induced by the aggregation of...

We analyze a multiple-activity, principal-agent model in which the activities are naturally substitutable for the agent and complementary for the principal. A basic result is that the optimal compensation must cause the agent to view the activities as complements. This complementarity is...

We argue that estimates of intertemporal substitution elasticities obtained from standard life cycle models are subject to a downward bias because they neglect changes in work done at home over the life cycle. We extend the standard life cycle model to include home production and estimate it...