TY  - JOUR
AU  - Mulligan,Casey B.
TI  - A Century of Labor-Leisure Distortions
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 8774
PY  - 2002
Y2  - February 2002
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8774
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8774.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Casey B. Mulligan
University of Chicago
Department of Economics
1126 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL  60637
Tel: 773/702-9017
Fax: 773/702-8490
E-Mail: c-mulligan@uchicago.edu
AB  - I construct direct measures of labor-leisure distortions for the American economy during the period 1889-1996, using a new method for empirically evaluating competitive equilibrium models and extending that method to some noncompetitive situations.  I then compare measured labor-leisure distortions to proxies for potential restraints of trade: distortionary taxes and subsidies, labor market regulation, monopoly unionism, and search frictions. Distortions have grown steadily over the century, with the exception of the Great Depression (when distortions were above trend), WWII (below trend), and the 1980's (below trend). Marginal tax rates are well correlated with labor-leisure distortions at low frequencies, but cannot explain Depression, wartime, or 1980's distortions.  Monopoly unionism might explain a small part of the Depression distortions, and the decline of unions might explain some of the reduced distortions in the 1980's.  In general, I find the decade-to-decade aggregate fluctuations in consumption, wages, and work to be hard to reconcile with simple quantitative models of labor supply and demand.
ER  -