Research Summary Video: The Price of your Free Time

Q: Have you discovered the formula for the value of time? A. Not at all. What I’ve done is research, from a microeconomic perspective, on how the economic value of a person’s free time can be measured. Q. Microeconomic? What does that mean? In microeconomics, we study the interactions between supply and demand for goods, and how both affect prices and markets. Q. And what does that have to do with time? A. Time can be treated as if it were a good or a product. Sometimes we buy time and sometimes we sell it, so it’s a tradable asset. Of course, there are differences. For example, when you hire a gardener to mow your lawn on Sundays, you’re buying time to spend with your family or friends, and you pay for that purchased time with money. On the other hand, when you go to work, you’re “buying money,” which you pay for with your “time.” The great paradox is that the currency you use to buy money at work is your life’s time—and once it’s gone, you can’t buy more.