IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ucr/wpaper/201912.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What Time Use Surveys Can (And Cannot) Tell Us about Labor Supply

Author

Listed:
  • Ruoyao Shi

    (Department of Economics, University of California Riverside)

  • Cheng Chou

    (University of Leicester)

Abstract

It has been widely acknowledged that the measurement of labor supply in the Current Population Survey (CPS) and other conventional microeconomic surveys has nonclassical measurement error, which will bias the estimates of crucial parameters in labor economics, such as labor supply elasticity. Time diary studies, such as the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), only have accurate measurement of hours worked on a single day, hence the weekly hours worked are unobserved. Despite the missing data problem, we provide several consistent estimators of the parameters in weekly labor supply equation using the information in the time use surveys. The consistency of our estimators does not require more conditions beyond those for a usual two stage least square (2SLS) estimator when the true weekly hours worked are observed. We also show that it is impossible to recover the weekly number of hours worked or its distribution function from time use surveys like the ATUS. In our empirical application we find considerable evidence of nonclassical measurement error in the hours worked in the CPS, and illustrate the consequences of using mismeasured weekly hours worked in empirical studies.

Suggested Citation

  • Ruoyao Shi & Cheng Chou, 2019. "What Time Use Surveys Can (And Cannot) Tell Us about Labor Supply," Working Papers 201912, University of California at Riverside, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:ucr:wpaper:201912
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://economics.ucr.edu/repec/ucr/wpaper/201912.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2019
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Angrist, Joshua D., 1991. "Grouped-data estimation and testing in simple labor-supply models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2-3), pages 243-266, February.
    2. Cheng Chou & Ruoyao Shi, 2019. "What Time Use Surveys Can (And Cannot) Tell Us About Labor Supply," Working Papers 202017, University of California at Riverside, Department of Economics, revised Jul 2020.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cheng Chou & Ruoyao Shi, 2020. "Utilizing Two Types of Survey Data to Enhance the Accuracy of Labor Supply Elasticity Estimation," Working Papers 202018, University of California at Riverside, Department of Economics.
    2. Cheng Chou & Ruoyao Shi, 2019. "What Time Use Surveys Can (And Cannot) Tell Us About Labor Supply," Working Papers 202017, University of California at Riverside, Department of Economics, revised Jul 2020.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Juan M. Contreras & Sven H. Sinclair, 2008. "The Labor Supply Response in Macroeconomic Models: Working Paper 2008-07," Working Papers 20141, Congressional Budget Office.
    2. James P. Vere, 2004. "Dragon Children: Identifying the Causal Effect of the First Child on Female Labor Supply with the Chinese Lunar Calendar," Labor and Demography 0407003, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 18 Oct 2004.
    3. Daniel G. Sullivan & Till von Wachter, 2006. "Mortality, mass-layoffs, and career outcomes: an analysis using administrative data," Working Paper Series WP-06-21, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    4. Sarah, Rosenberg, 2024. "Revisiting the Breadwinner Norm: Replicating Bertrand, Kamenica, and Pan (2015)," Working Papers 2024:10, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    5. Bayer, Amanda & Grossman, Jean & DuBois, David, 2015. "Using Volunteer Mentors to Improve the Academic Outcomes of Underserved Students: The Role of Relationships," MPRA Paper 85106, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2005. "The Relationship Between Education and Adult Mortality in the United States," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(1), pages 189-221.
    7. Díaz Antonia & Puch Luis A., 2019. "Investment, technological progress and energy efficiency," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 19(2), pages 1-28, June.
    8. Stephan Klasen & Janneke Pieters, 2015. "What Explains the Stagnation of Female Labor Force Participation in Urban India?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 29(3), pages 449-478.
    9. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn, 2007. "Changes in the Labor Supply Behavior of Married Women: 1980–2000," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(3), pages 393-438.
    10. Florence Kondylis & Valerie Mueller, 2014. "Economic consequences of conflict and environmental displacement," Chapters, in: Robert E.B. Lucas (ed.), International Handbook on Migration and Economic Development, chapter 14, pages 388-424, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. René Morissette & Feng Hou, 2008. "Does the labour supply of wives respond to husbands' wages? Canadian evidence from micro data and grouped data," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(4), pages 1185-1210, November.
    12. Paul A. Bekker & Jan van der Ploeg, 2000. "Instrumental Variable Estimation Based on Grouped Data," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1862, Econometric Society.
    13. Keane, Michael, 2010. "The Tax-Transfer System and Labour Supply," MPRA Paper 55167, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Frank Windmeijer, 2019. "Two-stage least squares as minimum distance," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 22(1), pages 1-9.
    15. Cornelissen, Thomas & Dustmann, Christian & Raute, Anna & Schönberg, Uta, 2016. "From LATE to MTE: Alternative methods for the evaluation of policy interventions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 47-60.
    16. Jang-Ok Cho & Merrigan, Philip & Phaneuf, Louis, 1998. "Weekly employee hours, weeks worked and intertemporal substitution," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 185-199, February.
    17. Michael P. Keane, 2011. "Labor Supply and Taxes: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(4), pages 961-1075, December.
    18. Devereux, Paul J., 2007. "Improved Errors-in-Variables Estimators for Grouped Data," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 25, pages 278-287, July.
    19. Blundell, Richard & Macurdy, Thomas, 1999. "Labor supply: A review of alternative approaches," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 27, pages 1559-1695, Elsevier.
    20. Verbeek, Marno & Vella, Francis, 2005. "Estimating dynamic models from repeated cross-sections," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 127(1), pages 83-102, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    measurement error; missing data; instrumental variable; asymptotic efficiency; labor supply;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C13 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Estimation: General
    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • C26 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation
    • C81 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data; Data Access
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucr:wpaper:201912. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kelvin Mac (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deucrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.