ocial Status and the Overworked Consumer

Pierre Cahuc and Fabien Postel-Vinay

Annals of Economics and Statistics, 2005, issue 78, 143-161

Abstract: A policy restricting working hours may be justified if agents care about their social status, as the race for status induces them to work too much. We show that this intuition is questionable if the commitment capacity of the government is limited: status seeking does press people to supply excessive labor relative to the social optimum, yet the time consistent policy of a government controlling working hours implies a shortage of hours.

Date: 2005
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:adr:anecst:y:2005:i:78:p:143-161

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