Work and Television
28 Pages Posted: 14 Oct 2001
There are 2 versions of this paper
Work and Television
Date Written: December 2002
Abstract
In OECD countries watching television is by far the most time-consuming form of leisure. Surprisingly, television viewing is positively correlated with work hours across countries. A simple model based on the notion of aggregate strategic complementarities in social leisure is developed which explains such a pattern as resulting from multiple equilibria. Workers and capitalists are shown to exhibit opposite preference orderings over equilibria. The relative ability of those two groups in capturing a country's government may explain which equilibrium is selected.
Keywords: Television Viewing, Work Hours, Relational Goods
JEL Classification: J2, H0
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation