- Title
- Intertemporal Substitution in Labor Supply: Evidence from Micro Data
- Author(s)
- Joseph G. Altonji Joseph Altonji (Columbia University)
- Abstract
- The sensitivity of the supply of labor to intertemporal variation in the wage is an important issue in macroeconomics, the analysis of social security and pensions, and the study of life cycle patterns of work. This paper explores two approaches to the measurement of intertemporal substitution which has appeared in the literature. The first approach is to use consumption to control for wealth and unobserved expectations about future wages in the labor supply equation. The second approach is to estimate a first difference equation for hours in which labor supply from the previous period serves as a control for wealth and wage expectations. The results indicate that the intertemporal substitution elasticity for married men is positive but small.
- Creation Date
- 1984-11
- Section URL ID
- IRS
- Paper Number
- 182
- URL
- https://dataspace.princeton.edu/bitstream/88435/dsp01hd76s005c/1/182.pdf
- File Function
- Jel
- C73, C78
- Keyword(s)
- labor supply, intertemporal substitution, consumption
- Suppress
- false
- Series
- 1