Prof. Sergio R. Jara-Diaz - Time use models and the values of work, leisure and travel: a personal research perspective

Time use models and the values of work, leisure and travel: a personal research perspective

Tuesday, 18th July, 11:00-12:00

Abstract:

Departing from Becker (1965), DeSerpa (1972), Evans (1972), Train and McFadden (1978) and others, the evolution of a series of microeconomic models of time use is presented. The kernel idea was that to obtain the conditional indirect utility function that commands discrete travel choices, conditional goods consumption and time use equations were implicitly required (Jara-Diaz, 1998). This was applied by Jara-Diaz and Guevara (2003) to obtain a labour supply model from which the components of the value of travel time savings could be estimated empirically. This evolved quite naturally into a model of all activities where a proper labour supply equation was pivotal to generate a system of time use – goods consumption set of equations from which the values of work and leisure could be calculated (Jara-Diaz and Guerra, 2003). That framework has been applied by Jara-Diaz et al (2008, 2013) and Munizaga et al (2008).

 The approaches by Konduri et al (2011) using structural equations and Castro et al (2012) using MDCEV models, motivated further developments in time use modelling that allowed to understand better the values of leisure and work by acknowledging explicit relations between time use and goods consumption (Jara-Diaz and Astroza, 2013; Jara-Diaz et al 2016). Recently, new models including domestic work (Rosales-Salas and Jara-Diaz, 2017) and latent classes (Astroza et al, 2017) have been proposed and applied, improving the estimation of the different time values.

The availability of better data sets and the recognition of models and approaches coming from other disciplines should allow for a more comprehensive view of time use in general and for the development of enhanced models to understand specific activities (Jara-Diaz and Rosales-Salas, 2017).