Economic Theories about the Allocation of Time: Review and an Extension for Multitasking

Abstract

Before the 1960s, economic theory poorly addressed questions about the allocation of time.¹ However, in the 1960s and 1970s some economists worked on new ways to model time use. Becker (1965), in his well-known contribution “A Theory of the Allocation of Time,” argued that consumers maximize their utility by choosing commodities that are produced with market goods and time by a consumer facing both budget and time constraints. DeSerpa (1971) and Evans (1972) further attempted to improve time allocation models² by including extra constraints in their models; both DeSerpa’s and Evans’s models can be shown to be particular cases of Becker’s model by just redefining commodities in Becker’s model and keeping the new suggested constraints.