The Demand for Variety: A Household Production Perspective
从家庭生产视角分析消费者对多样性的需求，发现教育通过改变时间成本增加活动多样性，且收入和教育对多样性有独立正向影响。
Economists have devoted substantial attention to firms' supply of variety, but little to consumers' demand for variety. Employing the framework of home production, we trace differences in demand to differences in the opportunity costs of activities, associated with investments in human capital. Schooling alters time costs and changes the variety of activities household members choose. Time budgets from Australia, Israel, and West Germany show that higher own and spouses' incomes raise variety (suggesting positive income effects). Education increases variety independent of income and earnings; part of its impact goes beyond a correlation of educational attainment with preferences for variety. Copyright by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.