The revealed willingness to pay for leisure: the link between structural and microeconomic models of time use

摘要

In this paper a new theoretical construct, the revealed willingness to pay forleisure, is presented as a link between two of the most powerful time use models,which are aimed at understanding time allocation and valuing time: themicroeconomic utility theory approach and the structural equations modelingmethod. This is achieved by formulating a structural equations model (SEM) thatkeeps the generic features of the approach as applied to time use modeling, butimproves incorporating expenses besides activities and socioeconomic variables,following Konduri et al (2011). The new equation on expenses in a leisure activitypermits the calculation of a revealed willingness to pay for leisure, which we show tobe theoretically different from the value of leisure that emerges from amicroeconomic formulation (value of time as a resource). Using the same data fromSantiago, Chile, we estimate both the SEM and a system of equations for working time,for the time allocated to a leisure activity and for the expenses associated to a leisureactivity, following the microeconomic model of Jara-Díaz and Guerra (2003). Weconfirm the theoretical derivations, concluding that the SEM does not permit thecalculation of the full value of leisure and that the microeconomic approach needs anexplicit constraint relating goods consumption and time use for an improvedestimation of a most important component of the value of travel time savings.