Lifestyle Dynamics Index: Worldwide Results and household economic implications

Wed 18 October 2017

Mill Lane Lecture Rooms

A novel index which captures lifestyle dynamics is described in this paper. By means of social time use surveys, increasingly spreading worldwide, we develop the so-called Lifestyle Dynamics Index, which is based on the information on activities provided by the Multinational Time Use Study (MTUS). We provide worldwide results of the Lifestyle Dynamics Index for all available countries historically. These results confirm a clear worldwide pattern towards a less dynamic lifestyle. Particularly, we study the case of the United States for the 2003-2012
time series period and since 2013 we perform a state level analysis; such results show the potential of this index since it is strongly related to relevant socio-economic information at the individual and household level, namely the per capita total household expenditures, obesity rates, net household savings, gdp or unemployment rates. As more time use data -already collected- were released worldwide, the results of this index will grow exponentially and the potential use for socio-economic policy purposes of the Lifestyle Dynamics Index could be better exploited.

Dr Sanchis is an Associate Researcher at ICEI (Complutense University of Madrid) and a Visiting Scholar at the Department of Land Economy (University of Cambridge). His main research interest are connected to household and behavioral economics with special emphasis on time allocation models. He holds an M.Phil in Environmental and Development Economics (University of Oslo) and a PhD in Economics (with honours, Complutense University of Madrid). In the recent past he has been a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Economics at Carlos III University of Madrid and a fellow in the RCC at Harvard University.

Cost: free