Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
966764 Journal of Monetary Economics 2015 20 Pages PDF
Abstract
Americans work more than Europeans. Using micro-data from the United States and 17 European countries, we document that women are typically the largest contributors to the cross-country differences in work hours. We also show that there is a negative relation between taxes and annual hours worked, driven by men, and a positive relation between divorce rates and annual hours worked, driven by women. In a calibrated life-cycle model with heterogeneous agents, marriage and divorce, we find that the divorce and tax mechanisms together can explain 45% of the variation in labor supply between the United States and the European countries.
Related Topics
Social Sciences and Humanities Economics, Econometrics and Finance Economics and Econometrics
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