The Sensitivity of an Empirical Model of Married Women's Hours of Work to Economic and Statistical Assumptions

This study undertakes a systematic analysis of several theoretic and statistical assumption s used in many empirical models of female labor supply. Using a singl e data set (PSID 1975 labor supply data) the author is able to replic ate most of the range of estimated income and substitution effects fo und in previous studies in this field. He undertakes extensive specif ication tests and finds that most of this range should be rejected du e to statistical and model misspecifications. The two most important assumptions appear to be the Tobit assumption used to control for sel f-selection into the labor force and exogeneity assumptions on the wi fe's wage rate and her labor market experience. Copyright 1987 by The Econometric Society.