Abstract
Sleep has received limited attention in economics and sleep duration is usually made exogenous and fixed in models of time allocation. In our framework sleeping involves investing in alertness but also a sacrifice of waking time. We show how the inter-temporal utility-maximization problem on the length of sleep is analogous to the optimality conditions for resource extraction. We then test the theoretical predictions that emerge from the model, which include the effects of labor market opportunities and having children, on sleep patterns.
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Notes
The second-order condition is \( - 2a_{{t_{s} }} + \left( {T - t_{s} } \right)a_{{t_{s} t_{s} }}\, <\,0 \).
The second-order condition is satisfied; \( - 2t_{s} < 0 \).
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Icelandic Research Fund (IRF—Grant Number 130611-052) and the University of Iceland Research Fund. We thank the Directorate of Health in Iceland for data provision.
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Ásgeirsdóttir, T.L., Ólafsson, S.P. & Zoega, G. Sleep and the management of alertness. Mind Soc 15, 169–189 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11299-015-0182-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11299-015-0182-z