Duke 2008 | ASHE | Equity and Efficiency in Health and Healthcare

In this paper we model sleep as a renewable energy resource in the context of a choice model. Individual energy is available in limited quantity and the individual must decide when it should be diminished (consumed) and when it should be renewed? Our formulation shows that the economics of sleeping is a close relative of the economics of resource extraction. More specifically, we show that the utility maximising conditions for sleep choices in a given period of time are a close relative of the Hotelling´s rule, which regards the optimal utilization of resources. Our model demonstrates several application that are important in an economic context and with regard to the distributions of sleep and related variables. Those are, for example, the possible effects of labour market opportunities on sleep patterns, the effect of having children on sleep, the effect of decreased division of labour in household production on sleep choices and the distribution of obesity. All of those can subsequently affect productivity. Empirical estimation of the demand for sleep would be an interesting pathway for future work.