Lab Meeting
Date and Time
February 8, 2017
03:30PM - 05:00PM EST
Location
DeVore Conference Room (MCZ 529)
Today, we'll hear from Rahul Bhui, a post-doc in the departments of Psychology and Economics at Harvard.
Market Integration and Work Time in Small-Scale Societies
While a century-long decline in working hours has accompanied modern economic growth, the opposite pattern may hold among pre-industrial and industrializing societies. We use time allocation data from several small-scale societies around the world to study the role market integration plays in labor-leisure choices at lower levels of economic complexity. The evidence suggests that greater proximity to markets is associated with more overall work time. Furthermore, the proportional relationship between time spent on commercial and non-commercial work in our dataset is also observed in modern economies. This may help predict future patterns of time allocation.
Market Integration and Work Time in Small-Scale Societies
While a century-long decline in working hours has accompanied modern economic growth, the opposite pattern may hold among pre-industrial and industrializing societies. We use time allocation data from several small-scale societies around the world to study the role market integration plays in labor-leisure choices at lower levels of economic complexity. The evidence suggests that greater proximity to markets is associated with more overall work time. Furthermore, the proportional relationship between time spent on commercial and non-commercial work in our dataset is also observed in modern economies. This may help predict future patterns of time allocation.