In OECD countries, watching television is by far the most time-consuming form of leisure. Surprisingly, television viewing is positively correlated with work hours across countries. A simple model based on the notion of aggregate strategic complementarities in social leisure, that explains such a pattern as the result of multiple equilibria, is developed. Workers and capitalists are shown to exhibit opposite preference orderings over equilibria. The relative ability of the two groups in influencing a country’s government may explain which equilibrium is selected.
Corneo, G. (2005). Work and television. European Journal of Political Economy, 21(1), 99-113.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2004.02.009
