Collaborative Research: Human Capital Accumulation and Aggregate Labor Supply

在过去的五十年里，分配给市场生产的工人时间的水平和构成发生了巨大的变化。最大的变化是已婚女性出市时间的增加。与此同时，单身男性和女性以及已婚男性的工作时数也相对稳定。除了工作时间的变化之外，还有生育率下降的明显趋势，特别是在受过高等教育的妇女中，以及30岁以后生育的比例增加。为了理解可能导致这些实质性变化的事件，本研究构建了宏观经济的动态一般均衡模型，其中家庭选择劳动力供给、人力资本和物质资本的消费和投资。市场消费和非市场消费都进入效用，都需要经过质量调整的时间和物质资本来生产。在我们的模型中，一个家庭可以是已婚夫妇，也可以是独居的单身人士。所有经济主体，单身、已婚、男性或女性；在劳动力、资本、投资和市场消费的总市场中相互作用。这项研究的一个主要目的是确定哪些因素可以解释观察到的基于性别的工资差异。该研究将考虑几种技术变革的影响，包括家庭耐用品生产率的提高、婚姻市场的变化以及对获取人力资本成本的冲击。

In the last fifty years there has been a dramatic change in the level and composition of worker hours allocated to market production. The largest change is the increase in market hours of married females. This has been accompanied by relative stability in the number of hours worked by single male and females, and by married males. In addition to the change in hours, there is a distinctive pattern of decreased fertility, especially among highly educated women, and increase in the proportion of births after age thirty. To understand the events that may have caused these substantial changes, this research constructs dynamic general equilibrium models of the macroeconomy in which households choose labor supplies, consumption and investment in both human and physical capital. Both market and non-market consumption enter utility and require both quality-adjusted time and physical capital to be produced. In our models, a household can either be a married couple or single individuals living alone. All the economic agents, single, married, male, or female; interact in aggregate markets for labor, capital, investment and market consumption. A major objective of the research is to determine what factors could explain observed gender-based wage differentials. The research will consider the impact of several types of technological change including, increased productivity of household durables, changes in the marriage market, and shocks to the costs of acquiring human capital.