Labor Supply and Entertainment Innovations: Evidence from the US TV Rollout

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Fenton, George; Koenig, Felix
• 署名单位: United States Department of the Treasury; Carnegie Mellon University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20230377
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: ANTENNA TELEVISION SYSTEMS; force participation; media; allocation; appliances; engines; TRENDS

摘要

We study the impact of entertainment technology on labor supply. Using Social Security work histories and a natural experiment arising from the regulated US rollout of television, we estimate that a station launch reduced the probability of working by around 0.3 percentage points, driven mainly by an increase in older-age-group retirement rates. The results support the hypothesis that television's rise contributed to the midcentury transition of retirement from a necessity to golden years of enjoyment. Our findings indicate that entertainment innovations have a less pronounced effect on overall labor supply trends than model calibrations in the previous literature suggest. (JEL D91, J22, J26, L82, N32)