Younger men, ages 21 to 30, exhibited a larger decline in work hours over the last fifteen years than older men or women. Since 2004, time-use data show that younger men distinctly shifted their leisure to video gaming and other recreational computer activities. We propose a framework to answer...

In this paper, we use five decades of time-use surveys to document trends in the allocation of time. We find that a dramatic increase in leisure time lies behind the relatively stable number of market hours worked (per working-age adult) between 1965 and 2003. Specifically, we show that leisure...

Standard tests of the permanent income hypothesis (PIH) using data on nondurables typically equate expenditures with consumption. However, as noted by Becker (1965), consumption is the output of a home production' function that uses both expenditure and time as inputs. With this in mind, we...

We use data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), covering both the recent recession and the pre-recessionary period, to explore how foregone market work hours are allocated to other activities over the business cycle. Given the short time series, it is hard to distinguish business cycle...

Using scanner data and time diaries, we document how households substitute time for money through shopping and home production. We find evidence that there is substantial heterogeneity in prices paid across households for identical consumption goods in the same metro area at any given point in...

In this paper we revisit two well-known facts regarding lifecycle expenditures. The first is the familiar quot;humpquot; shaped lifecycle profile of nondurable expenditures. We document that the behavior of total nondurables masks surprising heterogeneity in the lifecycle profile of individual...

This paper examines the changing allocation of time within the United States that has occurred between 1965 and 2003-2005. We find that the time individuals have allocated to leisure has increased in the U.S. for both men and women during this period, with almost the entire gain occurring prior...

We establish that creditor beliefs regarding future borrowing can be self-fulfilling, leading to multiple equilibria with markedly different debt accumulation patterns. We characterize such indeterminacy in the Eaton-Gersovitz sovereign debt model augmented with long maturity bonds. Two...

We provide a rationale for the observed pro-cyclicality of tax policies in emerging markets and present a novel mechanism through which tax policy amplifies the business cycle. Our explanation relies on two features of emerging markets: limited access to financial markets and limited commitment...

Business Cycles in emerging markets are characterized by strongly counter-cyclical current accounts, consumption volatility that exceeds income volatility and dramatic sudden stops' in capital inflows. These features contrast with developed small open economies and highlight the uniqueness of...