Question: When workers wages rise, their decision on how much time to spend working is affected in two conflicting ways, as you may have learned in

When workers’ wages rise, their decision on how much time to spend working is affected in two conflicting ways, as you may have learned in courses in microeconomics. The income effect is the impulse to work less, because greater incomes mean workers can afford to consume more leisure. The substitution effect is the impulse to work more, because the reward to working an additional hour has risen (equivalently, the opportunity cost of leisure has gone up). Apply these concepts to Blanchard’s hypothesis about American and European tastes for leisure. On which side of the Atlantic do income effects appear larger than substitution effects? On which side do the two effects approximately cancel? Do you think it is a reasonable hypothesis that tastes for leisure vary by geography? Why or why not?

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