A JOINT ANALYSIS OF TIME USE AND CONSUMER EXPENDITURE DATA:AN EXAMINATION OF TWO ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES TO DERIVING VALUES OF TIME

摘要

Time use perspectives in travel behavior research are increasingly gaining attention for their ability toshed light on the underlying temporal processes that affect travel demand and influence behavioralresponses to a range of land use and transportation policy actions. This paper offers an examination oftime use allocation to work and leisure activities in the context of the monetary expenditures that areincurred for different categories of activities including work, leisure, and other committed expenses(such as housing, food, education, and transportation). A microeconomic model based on consumerchoice theory is estimated to model time allocated to work and leisure, and determine the value of timefor work and leisure. The model is estimated on a synthesized data set that was created by mergingrecords from the 2008 American Time Use Survey data set with records from the 2008 ConsumerExpenditure Survey data set of the United States. The model results show that individuals in the sampledata set work until the margin, i.e., until the marginal utility of work is nearly zero, implying that thevalue of leisure is nearly equal to the wage rate. In addition, a structural equations model system thatrelates time allocation for work and leisure, and monetary expenditures for leisure, is estimated to drawinferences about relationships among these variables. Comparisons of model results suggest that themodels offer vastly different measures of the value of leisure; while the microeconomic model offers autilitarian measure of the value of leisure, the structural equations model provides a measure of theaverage relationship between monetary expenditure and time allocation. The paper concludes with adiscussion on the implications of the findings from the perspective of applying different models forpolicy analysis.