劳动时间的政治经济学分析

Political Ecomomy Analysis of Labour Time

本文围绕着劳动时间这一劳动力市场上的重要变量,使用数理推导和数据模拟的方法,仅利用异质劳动者、生存需求和劳动时间的生理界限这三个假设便推导出主流经济学在主观效用函数的基础上进行复杂的边际分析才得出的向后弯曲的倒C型劳动供给曲线,同时还模拟出了只在关于家庭/联合劳动供给的最新研究中才发现的倒S型劳动力供给曲线,实现了对经典劳动理论的拓展。这个过程说明分析微观经济决策时,客观约束比主观偏好的影响更直接。总体劳动供给函数的得到并不依赖于"效用最大化"这一理性假设。在总体存在异质性的情况下,微观层面的结果可能完全与宏观现象相反,横向加总可能会产生突变性质。只有通过进一步加深对总体突变性的理解,人们才能够更好地把握宏观趋势。

Using analytic proofs as well as numerical simulations, we have proved that a number of microeconomic assumptions can give rise to the same macroeconomic trend between the length of the working day and the wage rate due to the emerging features of aggregation. The neoclassical economies relied on complicated marginal analysis based on subjectively constructed utility function to derive a backward sloped ＂C-shaped＂ labor supply curve. We have relied on three simple assumptions on heterogeneity, living demands and the physiological limits of the length of the working day to derive both a standard ＂C-Shaped＂ labor supply curve and an extended ＂S-Shaped＂ labor supply curve that is only recently proposed in the family labor supply literature. We thus suggested that the rational representative agent was not needed in order to derive a labor supply curve in the aggregate leve. essary nor a sufficient condition. In fact, we have proved that it is neither a nec-essary nor a sufficient condition.