José Alberto Molina

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at University of Zaragoza

Climate change and global warming are severe threats that currently affect the daily lives of the world population. One of the human behaviors that can be most affected by weather conditions is that of personal travel, including commuting, an activity that millions of workers worldwide engage in daily. Within this framework, we analyze the relation...

Traditionally, the data on inheritances in surveys are analyzed assuming that they are equally shared within households. However, inheritances are commonly individual assets, regardless of the marital property regime adopted at the time of marriage. In this paper, we examine the impact of individual unexpected inheritances on household labor supply...

This paper studies the impact of inheritances, a key component in household wealth accumulation, on consumption. Specifically, we investigate how inheritances influence household consumption growth, distinguishing durable and nondurable goods. In doing so, we use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics spanning 2005–2019. The results reveal a...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the incidence of working from home (WFH) skyrocketed as businesses closed and distancing standards were mandated, exposing many workers to a remote work arrangement. This paper studies how WFH relates to worker time allocation and enjoyment, considering gender differences and pandemic phases, using real-time data from...

This paper explores how gasoline prices and the commuting behavior of US commuters are related, with a focus on the use of private motor vehicles, public transit, walking, and cycling. Basic economic theory suggests that as gasoline prices rise, there tends to be a decrease in the consumption of gasoline due to the substitution and income effect, l...

Prior studies show men commute longer than women, often due to household responsibilities. However, research on commuting differences within couples is limited. This study examines gender gaps in commuting times and mode choices among dual-earner couples in Spain, Italy, South Korea, and the UK. Using Ordinary Least Squares regressions, we find tha...

The extent to which individuals commit to their partner for life has important implications. This paper develops a lifecycle collective model of the household, through which it characterises behaviour in three prominent alternative types of commitment: full, limited, and no commitment. We propose a test that distinguishes between all three types ba...

We analyze the effects of family size on food consumption. Specifically, we explore the economies of scale that emerge in families, taking advantage of a very rich panel data for Spanish consumers. We hypothesize that family public goods induce economies of scale in consumption and, consequently, larger families should have higher per capita consum...

This paper studies spouses’ intrahousehold decision-making, using unique information from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions special module on Intrahousehold Sharing of Resources. We build an index to measure the bargaining power of the wife in household decision-making in European countries and analyze how that index cor...

Recent analyses have shown that commutes to and from work are not symmetric, suggesting that intermediate activities are at the root of the asymmetries. However, to model how these activities accumulate and interact within trips to and from work is a methodologically unexplored issue. We analyze the intermediate activities done while commuting, usi...

The extent to which individuals commit to their partner for life has important implications. This paper develops a lifecycle collective model of the household, through which it characterizes behavior in three prominent alternative types of commitment: full, limited, and no commitment. We propose a test that distinguishes between all three types bas...

In this paper, we analyze the relationship between Body Mass Index of the members of the couple and the distribution of housework within the same couple. Prior research has documented that higher-BMI spouses compensate their partners by increasing their market work hours. The question remains, does this compensation mechanism extend to the share of...

Deaton, A., and C. Paxson (1998. “Economies of Scale, Household Size, and the Demand for Food.” Journal of Political Economy 106 (5): 897–930. doi: 10.1086/250035) found the opposite to what theory predicts: food share declines with household size, keeping household per capita expenditure constant. This paper aims to explore the relationship betwee...

Prior literature analyzing gender differences in commuting has reported that men commute longer distance/time than do women, and one explanation for this gender gap is based on household responsibilities falling on women. But most of the literature examining gender differences in commuting has not considered the interdependence that exists between...

The COVID-19 pandemic has confined millions in their homes, an unprecedented opportunity to spend more time together with family members. This paper explores subjective well-being in the uses of time for US and UK workers, differentiating between solo activities and activities done with family members, at home and outside the home. Using American a...

This paper investigates greenhouse gas emissions convergence among nineteen Latin American countries, for the period 1970 to 2018. To that end, we use the Phillips-Sul methodology to examine whether these countries have followed an absolute convergence process, or whether there has been a club convergence process. Our results offer important insigh...

This paper explores the mobility patterns of older adults in ten countries, with a focus on the differences produced by urban environments in their non-work trips. Using detailed time use diaries from the Multinational Time Use Study for the last two decades, we analyze the trips associated with leisure and housework of non-working older adults. Th...

Mobility gives individuals access to different daily activities, facilities, and places, but at the cost of imposing environmental externalities. The sustainable growth of society is linked to green mobility (e.g., public transport, walking, cycling) as a way to alleviate individual carbon footprints. This study explores the socio-demographic profi...

Millions of people travel every day by car in cities around the world, with daily mobility being one of the main contributors to CO2 emissions. Bicycle-sharing systems are a mobility alternative to cars that may help to reduce CO2 and GHG emissions. We analyze a public bike-sharing service (BIZI, in Zaragoza, Spain, May 2008–August 2019, 24 million...

Existing research has focused on factors explaining self-employment decisions, and the intergenerational transmission of self-employment has been posited as one explanatory factor. However, findings differ across countries, and the channels for such transmission remain unclear. Using data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Cond...

In recent years, efforts to promote alternative and greener modes of transport have been aimed at boosting sustainable economic growth. The question of mode choice calls for an analysis of how different modes of transport relate to the well-being of users. We use the UK Time Use Survey (UKTUS) from 2014 to 2015, and examine data on self-reported en...

We analyze the relationship between temporal flexibility at work (i.e., the ability to vary or change the time of beginning or ending work) and the motherhood wage gap of working parents, in the US. To that end, we first characterize temporal flexibility at work using the 2017–2018 Leave and Job Flexibilities (LJF) Module of the American Time Use S...

This paper analyzes the intrahousehold bargaining power of spouses in Spanish families, in a collective framework. We estimate household labor supply equations and, under certain testable restrictions, we obtain a theoretically derived sharing rule for household income, which characterizes intrahousehold bargaining power. Then, using unique data on...

This paper examines the time spent commuting to/from work by workers in fifteen European countries, during the last three decades, with the aim of analyzing recent trends in commuting and the factors affecting commuting behavior. Using data from several waves of the European Working Conditions Survey, results show a significant gender gap in commut...

Existing research has focused on factors explaining why individuals become self-employed. Self-employment may represent a significant proportion of total employment in many countries, and the intergenerational correlation of self-employment has been used as an explanatory factor, although findings differ across countries, methods, and strategies. U...

This paper analyzes the existence of efficiency wages in the French and Spanish labor markets, within an urban efficiency wage theoretical framework. Using data from the French and Spanish time use surveys for the year 2009–2010, results support the main hypothesis of urban efficiency wage models. In particular, that leisure and shirking at work ar...

This contribution adopts an economic perspective to summarize what we learned in the last decade about the work–family conflict (WFC) and, primarily, where we go from here. On the basis of recent labor, demographic and socio-economic changes, and the use of both data and economic methods, we have identified a number of important topics. First, the...

Daily commuting of workers is a complex phenomenon that has long attracted research attention and, despite the significant literature acknowledging differences between morning and evening commuting, commuting trips to and from work are considered symmetric in much of the prior research. We explore the asymmetries in time spent commuting to and from...

We analyze the relationship between sex-ratios in the region of residence, and the time devoted to paid and unpaid work by couples in Mexico (2002, 2009, 2014), Peru (2010), Ecuador (2012), Colombia (2012, 2017) and Chile (2015). We find that sex-ratios are negatively related to the time devoted by women to paid work in Ecuador, and positively rela...

We analyse the long-run intergenerational correlation of employment in Europe, providing cross-country evidence. Using the 2011 special module on Intergenerational Transmission, from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), we analyse the correlation between the current employment status of respondents, and that of t...

Sustainable commuting (SC) usually refers to environmentally friendly travel modes, such as public transport (bus, tram, subway, light rail), walking, cycling, and carpooling. The double aim of the paper is to summarize relevant prior results in commuting from a social approach, and to provide new, international empirical evidence on carpooling as...

This paper explores the commuting behavior of workers in Western Europe, with a focus on the differences in commuting time between employees and the self-employed. Using data from the last wave of the European Working Conditions Survey (2015), we analyze the commuting behavior of workers, finding that male and female self-employed workers devote 18...

We analyse the production and networks of Nobel laureates in Economics, employing the Normalized Impact Factor (NIF) of their publications in the Journal of Citation Report (Economics), to identify the academic leaders among those laureates awarded between 1969 and 2016. Our results indicate that direct collaborations among laureates are, in genera...

Network analysis allows us to introduce different metrics that complement the traditional indicators to measure academic performance, generally based on individual production. In this paper, we show how the use of these techniques provides a more global point of view, introducing indicators that, beyond individual merits, measure the capacity of re...

We analyzed the time self-employed and employed mothers from Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia devoted to paid work, unpaid work, and child care, finding that self-employed mothers devoted less time to paid work, and more time to unpaid work and child care, compared to employed mothers in those countries, and that self-employed mothers in Mexico,...

From the previous evidence, usually mixed, on the relationship between family variables and entrepreneurship, this Special Issue provides new results from around the world, which contribute to a better knowledge of the determinants behind the entrepreneurship decisions of individuals and families and, consequently, of the mechanisms through which t...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the time-allocation decisions of individuals who work from home (i.e. teleworkers), and compare them with their commuter counterparts. Design/methodology/approach Using data from the American Time Use Survey for the years 2003–2015, the authors analyze the time spent working, and the timing of work,...

This paper analyzes how gasoline tax rates are related to the time workers in the United States spend commuting by private car, public transport, or with other physical modes of transport. Our identification strategy relies on both inter-state differences and time variations in gasoline taxes. Using the American Time Use Surveys for the years 2003–...

We analyze cooperation of individuals in a family context, using a Public Good game. In a lab experiment, 165 individuals from 55 three-generation families (youth, parent, and grandparent) play a repeated Public Good game in three different treatments: one in which three members of the same family play each other (family), a second with the youth a...

Introduction Millions of individuals commute every day in the US. Despite commuting has been shown to have negative consequences for workers, no evidence has been about how commuting is related to feelings in other episodes. We analyzed the relationship between the feelings reported by American workers throughout the day and the time devoted to com...

The research on commuting has emerged in recent decades, but the issue of whether the empirical techniques used are appropriate has not been analysed. Thus, results from prior research could be based on non‐accurate models, leading to misleading conclusions. We apply an algorithmic approach based on bootstrapping, variable selection, and mean absol...

In this paper, we propose an algorithmic approach based on resampling and bootstrap techniques to measuring the importance of a variable, or a set of variables, in econometric models. This algorithmic approach allows us to check the real weight of a variable in a model, avoiding the biases of classical tests, and to select the more powerful variabl...

This paper analyzes the relationship between parents’ time devoted to housework and the time devoted to housework by their children. Using data from the Multinational Time Use Study for the UK, we find positive intergenerational correlations in housework for both parents, indicating that the more time parents devote to housework, the more time thei...

In this paper, we analyze the commuting behavior of workers in the United States, with a focus on the differences between employees and the self-employed. Using the American Time Use Survey for the years 2003–2014, our empirical results show that employees spend 7.22 more minutes per day commuting than their self-employed counterparts, which repres...

This paper analyzes the efficient labor supply of male and female workers in Latin American countries employing the collective model framework (Chiappori et al.,2002). Using data from Time Use Surveys for Mexico (2009) and Colombia (2012), we find evidence of Pareto-efficient labor supply decisions within households, as the collective rationality i...

In this paper, we analyze the time allocation decisions of teleworkers, and compare them with their commuter counterparts. Using data from the American Time Use Survey for the years 2003 to 2015, we analyze the time spent working, the timing of work, and the instant enjoyment experienced while working, of teleworkers and commuters. Results show tha...

In this paper, we empirically analyze the individual characteristics that drive older workers to become entrepreneurs, providing evidence of the differences between developed and developing countries. While OLS models provide limited conclusions, Qualitative Comparative Analysis and fuzzy set logic, at the country level, using GEM 2014 Adult Popula...

This paper proposes an extension of the collective model for labor supply developed by Chiappori, Fortin and Lacroix (2002) to an intertemporal setting. We first develop a theoretical model to analyze the intra-household distribution of wealth in a multi-period framework, with a focus on labor supply and marriage markets. The model allows us to der...

This study uses time-use survey data for Mexico, Peru, and Ecuador (from 2009, 2010, and 2012, respectively) to analyze differences between countries in terms of the gendered distribution of total work, which includes both paid and unpaid work. It explores whether the variations in the total time worked by women and men, and, particularly, the gend...

This paper examines whether culture plays a role in the number of children born. We use data on immigrant women who arrived in the United States when younger than age six. Since all these women grew up under the same laws, institutions, and economic conditions, then the differences between them by country of origin may be due to cultural difference...

In this paper, we analyze the spatial distribution of US employment and earnings against an urban wage-efficiency background, where leisure and effort at work are complementary. Using data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) for the period 2003-2014, we analyze the spatial distribution of employment across metropolitan areas. We also empirical...

This article analyses the determinants of escaping poverty through education in Spain, with this being the country that, is among the top European countries regarding the percentage of the population affected by poverty. Specifically, the article studies the transmission of poverty over two generations by analysing the factors that affect the proba...

This paper analyzes the relationship between parents’ time devoted to housework and the time devoted to housework by their children. Using data for Germany and Spain from the Multinational Time Use Study, we find positive correlations between parents’ and children’s housework time, indicating that the more time parents devote to housework, the more...

In this paper, we study self-employment in a theoretical setting derived from urban efficiency wages spatial models, where leisure and effort at work are complementary. Our model shows that unemployment tends to concentrate far from business districts, in contrast to employment and self-employment. The self-employed tend to live closer to workplace...

In this paper, we analyze how self-employed and employed mothers in several Latin American countries allocate their time throughout the day in order to balance their family and work responsibilities. Using data from time-use surveys for Mexico (2009), Peru (2010), Panama (2011), Ecuador (2012) and Colombia (2012), we find that self-employed mothers...

We analyze whether male or female individuals have a higher probability of becoming entrepreneurs in developing regions (Africa, Asia, South America), controlling by individuals' entrepreneurial environment and countries' macroeconomic context. Using the GEM data, we avoid heterogeneity and the potential confounding problems arising from the defini...

In this paper, we empirically analyze the individual characteristics that drive older workers to become entrepreneurs, more by necessity than desire, providing evidence of the differences between developed and developing countries. While OLS models do not provide any meaningful conclusions, Qualitative Comparative Analysis and fuzzy set logic, at t...

In this paper, we analyze the time employed and self-employed mothers devote to paid work and childcare activities, focusing on the activities aimed at increasing the human capital of children. To that end, we use time-use survey data for Mexico (2009), Peru (2010), Panama (2011), Ecuador (2012) and Colombia (2012). In our econometric results, we f...

This paper analyses the relationship between health inequality and the time allocation decisions of workers in six European countries, deriving some important policy implications in the context of income tax systems, regulation of working conditions, and taxes on leisure activities. Using the Multinational Time Use Study, we find that a better perc...

In this paper, we focus on the relationship between parents’ education and activities aimed at increasing the human capital of children (for example, educational childcare). Using time use surveys from Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia we find that in Mexico, Peru, and Colombia the level of education of both father and mother has a positive assoc...

In the context of growing interest of individuals in the Internet, the literature has not paid attention to the uses of time for children, given the scarcity of appropriate data bases that provide accurate information. To partially cover this gap, we now provide here evidence of the time that children aged between 10 and 12 years dedicate to two on...

In terms of economics, individuals divorce if their expected gains from marriage fall short of their expected utility outside the current marriage, and children represent a marriage-specific type of investment, which generally increases the value of marriage for the spouses. However, children may also disrupt marital stability as they will induce d...

This paper explores the impact of inter-generational transfers on the marital surplus, measured as the difference between the utility level in marriage and in divorce. To that end, we consider a three-generation family playing a two-stage sequential game. In this framework, we find conditions under which an increase in inter-generational transfers...

Our objective is to analyse the decision to become an entrepreneur in Spain, with a special focus on the role of household finances in making that decision. To that end, we compare earnings for both salaried workers and entrepreneurs, and develop a theoretical framework to characterize entrepreneurship outcomes by a production function. This model...

In this paper, we analyze the relationship between potential worker supply, measured through sex ratios, and commuting times in the United States. Using the American Time Use Survey 2003-2014, we analyze the relationship between commuting times and sex ratios by state and age, and show that the proportion of males to females is negatively related t...

This article studies the determinants of time spent by Spanish consumers on reading, watching TV and listening to the radio. To that end, we estimate a SUR (seemingly unrelated regressions) model with data from the Spanish Time Use Survey for 2009–2010. Our results show that being self-employed has a negative and significant effect on the time dedi...

This paper takes the perspective of both managers and of employees to examine the determinants of training transfer in the wine industry. To that end, a number of conceptual hypotheses are formulated focusing on three factors: the design of the training, the characteristics of the trainees, and those of the organization, with these being tested usi...

In this paper, we study self-employment in a theoretical setting derived from wage-efficiency spatial models, where leisure and effort at work are complementary. We develop a spatial model of self-employment in which effort at work and commuting are negatively related, and thus the probability of self-employment decreases with " expected " commutin...

This paper analyses how self-employed (entrepreneurs) and employed workers earnings differ in Spain. We develop an empirical analysis on the factors that determine income and the factors that determine the effects on the financial situation of the families of entrepreneurs versus salaried families. We use the " Encuesta Financiera de las Familias "...

This paper studies the impact of culture on the fertility behavior of teenage women in the US. To identify this effect, it took an epidemiological approach, exploiting the variations in teenage women's fertility rates by ancestral home country. Using three different databases (the US National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, the US National Longi...

We examine the relationship between individual commuting behavior and household responsibilities, with a focus on gender differences in that relationship. Using the Dutch Time Use Survey for the years 2000 and 2005, we analyze the relationship between commuting time, home production, and childcare. To deal with reverse causality, we use Propenstity...

Background: The primary purpose of this paper is to examine youth addiction and other justifications for adolescent smoking, and how they affect the level of consumption. Methods: Data from the Spanish 'State Survey on Drug Use among High School Students' aged between 14 and 18 years old were used in this paper. To account for the nature of the...

This study attempts to analyze the existence and magnitude of social interactions in alcohol-impaired driving among Spanish adolescents. Using a wave of data collected from 25,473 Spanish students between 14 and 18 years old, we estimate the cross-sectional association between alcohol-impaired driving and several predictors. We examine the prevalen...

This article analyses the factors associated with student satisfaction in a sample of undergraduate students from the University of Zaragoza (Spain). In addition to considering socio-demographic characteristics, we also examine factors related to expectations and motivations. Using data from a survey carried out during the academic year 2011/12, we...

Objective: This paper examines the transmission of smoking in-home across three generations in Spain. Methods: Multilevel logistic regression is used to assess the significance and magnitude of intergenerational transmissions of smoking in-home. We use the survey data “Encuesta Estatal Sobre Uso De Drogas en Estudiantes de Enseñanzas Secundarias (E...

We examine whether commuting time has any effect on worker labour supply, using the Dutch Time Use Surveys of 2000 and 2005. Our results show an inverted U-shaped relationship between commuting time and labour market supply of men and women, with a maximum reached at 3.22 hours of commuting per day. We use Propensity Score Matching to deal with pot...

The literature on altruism and monetary transfers in the household is here extended with new and recent evidence on different approaches with the final aim being to provide policy recommendations in order to reduce socio-economic inequality among households, from both inter- and intra-generational perspectives. Thus, we include issues which deal wi...

Adolescent smoking is one of the most pressing public health problems. The objective of this paper is to analyse the influence of peer pressure on adolescent cigarette consumption. More concretely, we explore the significance and robustness of the peer effects using several estimation methods employed in the existing literature. On the basis of the...

This paper analyzes the relationship between time allocation decisions of the unemployed, gender, and regional unemployment rates. Using the Spanish Time Use Survey 2002-2003 and 2009-2010, we find that higher regional unemployment rates are associated with increases in the time devoted to study by men, and to household production by women, and wit...

The emergence of cooperation among unrelated human subjects is a long-standing conundrum that has been amply studied both theoretically and experimentally. Within the question, a less explored issue relates to the gender dependence of cooperation, which can be traced back to Darwin, who stated that "women are less selfish but men are more competiti...

This paper analyzes the relationship between health status and time allocation decisions in 6 European countries. Using the Multinational Time Use Study, we find that a better perception of own health is associated with less time devoted to sleep, personal care, and non-market work, and with less time in leisure for men, while it is associated with...

We introduce the concept of the consensus functional equation, for a bivariate map defined on an abstract choice set. This equation is motivated by miscellaneous examples coming from different contexts. In particular, it appears in the analysis of sufficiently robust agreements arising in social choice. We study the solutions of this equation, rela...

It is generally accepted that nature is, in essence, competitive. Nevertheless, the world is full of examples that demonstrate the opposite, cooperation. It is precisely this spirit of collaboration, this teamwork, that has allowed the emergence of increasingly complete forms of life. This special issue is about altruistic acts defined as behavior...

We analyze the relationship between parents’ education and the time devoted to childcare activities, with a focus on activities aimed at increasing the child’s human capital. We use the sample of opposite-sex couples with children under age 18, from Spain (2002) and the UK (2000), included in the Multinational Time Use Study. By estimating a seemin...

In this paper, we examine the importance of two different peer effects as determinants in the adolescent’s decision whether or not to smoke. One is measured at the class level and the other reflects the smoking behaviour of the adolescent’s best friends. A nationally representative wave of Spanish data, collected in different state and private cent...

We analyse how self-employed and employed mothers allocate their time throughout the day in order to balance their work and family responsibilities. To that end, we use time diary information from Spain, a country with a low level of women's participation in the labour market (Spanish Time Use Survey (STUS), 2002–2003). We find that self-employed m...

This paper presents a social norms interpretation to explain cross-country differences in partnership formation rates. Social norms are modeled as a constraint on the allocation of household labor that diminishes the gains of entering a partnership, especially for highly educated women with a higher opportunity cost of time. Results using individua...

This paper first identifies the determinants of income satisfaction of individuals within the household and, secondly, characterises whether their preferences are altruistic or egoistic. To that end, it formulates a theoretical framework from the collective family model whose stochastic formulations are estimated for 14 EU countries by using the ei...

We analyze the numerical representability of total preorders defined on semitopological real algebras through continuous order-preserving real-valued functions that are also additive and multiplicative. The results obtained are used to interpret important concepts arising in Social Choice theory.

In order to formalize the act of agreement between two individuals, the concept of consensus functional equation, for a bi-variate map defined on an abstract choice set, is introduced. Then, and in a purely choice-theoretical framework, we relate the solutions of this equation to the notion of a rationalizable agreement rule. Finally, some results...

This paper examines the role of care decision processes on informal caring-time choices. We focus on three care decisions: the caregiver's own decision, a family decision and a recipient request. Results show that informal caregivers, engaged in care activities as a result of a family decision, are more likely to devote more than 5 h to care activi...

This paper provides evidence of the intergenerational mobility of economic wellbeing for the countries of the EU-15. We deal with the potential endogeneity of the transmission parameter by exploiting the presence of heteroskedasticity in a cross-sectional setting, using rank-order IV and conditional second moments estimation. OLS and panel (Fixed E...

The evaluation of social programs constitutes an important aspect in the modeling of economic policies. On the basis that the measurement of well being through subjective measures provides a broader perspective than through objective economic variables, this paper first identifies the determinants of deprivation in Spain, in monetary terms, and in...