NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH

A Life Cycle Family Model

James P. Smith

NBER Working Paper No. 5*
Issued in July 1973

The household production model provides a useful theoretical framework in which one may analyze family labor supply issues. In this model, the family is viewed as if it were a small firm producing its ultimate wants within the household. In order to satisfy these wants, the family (firm) combines purchased market goods and services with the time of various family members. This approach differs from the traditional treatment of the labor-leisure choice decision since the price of any activity now has two components – the goods price and the time price of each family member. The relative empirical importance of the two components depends, of course, on their respective shares in the cost of producing an activity.

You may purchase this paper on-line in .pdf format from SSRN.com ($5) for electronic delivery.

Information about Free Papers

You should expect a free download if you are a subscriber, a corporate associate of the NBER, a journalist, a site with your domain name in ".GOV", or a resident of nearly any developing country or transition economy.

If you usually get free papers at work/university but do not at home, you can either connect to your work VPN or proxy (if any) or elect to have a link to the paper emailed to your work email address below. The email address must be connected to a subscribing college, university, or other subscribing institution. Gmail and other free email addresses will not have access.

E-mail:

Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX

 
Publications
Activities
Meetings
Data
People
About

National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138; 617-868-3900; email: info@nber.org