Publisher's Synopsis
This book deals with recent development in economic theory pertaining to the study of household production and valuation. It examines the major theoretical and methodological issues involved in measuring and valuing household production (or household work) such as definition, quantification, joint-production and valuation. This is an important area of research in household economics, and this book goes well beyond earlier efforts in dealing effectively with serious and controversial measurement issues. The book also provides a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of major empirical studies done on measuring household production in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. The methods used, results and limitations are reported. The studies are chronologically dated and listed by country origins. A key element in the book?s contents is the author?s suggestion of a new way to measure and evaluate household production for social accounting purposes. This takes the form of constructing an efficiency-adjusted index for replacement cost measures, and for the first time, integrating both the well-known replacement cost and opportunity cost approaches. This book should be very useful to researchers in household economics including family and home economists, sociologists, social workers, national income accountants, and those teaching in the area of microeconomics, women?s studies, social accounting, as well as students and other related researchers.
