Stone–Geary type preferences and the long-run labor supply

In most advanced economies, working hours have steadily declined, while the per-capita income has steadily increased. Boppart and Krusell (J Polit Econ 128(1):118–157, 2020) propose a new preference class in order to account for these observations. They show that the income effect on labor supply exceeds the substitution effect in the balanced-growth path. However, the longer-term changes, or less-developed economies, reveal backward-bending relationships between income and working hours. To explain this fact, we introduce Stone–Geary type non-homotheticity in preferences into a non-overlapping generations model, and analyze how working hours evolve with income. With the non-homotheticity, the long-run equilibrium labor supply bends backward. Further, the backward-bending curve emerges not only as a transitional phenomenon, but also in the balanced-growth path.