Over the last few decades, hours worked per capita have declined substantially in many OECD economies. Using the standard neoclassical growth model with endogenous work–leisure choice, we assess the role of trend growth slowdown in accounting for the decline in hours worked. In the model, a permanent reduction in technological growth decreases steady-state hours worked by increasing the consumption–output ratio. Our empirical analysis exploits cross-country variation in the timing and size of the decline in technological growth to show that technological growth has a highly significant positive effect on hours. A decline in the long-run trend of technological growth by 1 percentage point is associated with a decline in trend hours worked in the range of 1–3%. This result is robust to controlling for taxes, which have been found in previous studies to be an important determinant of hours. Our empirical finding is quantitatively in line with the one implied by a calibrated version of the model, though evidence for the model’s implication that the effect on hours works via changes in the consumption–output ratio is rather mixed.

中文翻译：

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长期的技术增长和时间：理论和证据

在过去的几十年里，许多经合组织经济体的人均工作时间大幅下降。使用带有内生工作休闲选择的标准新古典增长模型，我们评估了趋势增长放缓在解释工作时间减少方面的作用。在该模型中，技术增长的永久减少通过增加消费产出比来减少稳态工作时间。我们的实证分析利用技术增长下降的时间和规模的跨国差异来表明技术增长对工时有非常显着的积极影响。技术增长的长期趋势下降 1 个百分点与趋势工作小时数下降 1-3% 相关。这个结果对于控制税收是稳健的，这在之前的研究中被发现是小时的重要决定因素。我们的实证发现在数量上与模型校准版本所暗示的结果一致，尽管模型暗示的证据表明，通过消费-产出比的变化对工时产生影响的证据相当复杂。