A structured overview of new GLO research published in August 2026. The 13 new GLO Discussion Papers (links to DPs below) deal with issues related to:
- Household time, gender & life-cycle behavior
- Climate, environment & sustainability
- Firms, workplace institutions & resilience
- Technology, regional transformation & inequality
- Education, health & human capital
- Migration attitudes & policy
FOCUS
1802 Sleeping Investment: A Life-Cycle Hypothesis – Download PDF
by Chung, Andy & Zhang, Junsen
Sleeping longer at older age?
Abstract. This paper develops and tests a life-cycle hypothesis of sleep investment. Motivated by evidence from psychology, aging, and sleep research that the consequences of insufficient sleep become increasingly severe with age, we argue that individuals facing stronger productivity incentives should increasingly preserve sleep as they age. We formalize this idea in a simple life-cycle framework in which sleep is a productive activity that competes with work and leisure for time. We test the framework using longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). We focus on adolescent physical attractiveness and college education as two characteristics associated with occupational sorting and long-run productivity incentives. While both characteristics exhibit little association with sleep duration in early adulthood, their relationships with sleep become increasingly positive over the life cycle. Attractive individuals and college graduates experience substantially less negative declines in sleep duration with age and increasingly sleep longer relative to their counterparts in later adulthood. Additional analyses show that these patterns are strongest among workers and are not readily explained by mental health, sleep difficulties, social participation, or reverse causality through sleep affecting later attractiveness. More broadly, the findings suggest that differences in long-run productivity incentives contribute to divergent sleep trajectories over adulthood and support a life-cycle perspective on sleep investment.
Featured image: Jordan-Whitt-EerxztHCjM8-unsplash
Structured Overview (links to papers below)
| TOPIC | PAPER | SUMMARY |
|---|---|---|
| Household time, gender & life-cycle behavior | 1808 – Who Absorbs a School Day? School Schedules and Household Time Allocation | School-day changes mainly alter children’s time use, with limited effects on mothers’ market work. |
| 1804 – Gender Convergence in Paid Work, but Not in Care Activities | Paid-work gender gaps narrowed, while inequalities in unpaid care persisted or increased. | |
| 1802 – Sleeping Investment: A Life-Cycle Hypothesis | Sleep increasingly acts as a productive investment over the life cycle. | |
| Climate, environment & sustainability | 1807 – Surviving the Daily Heat: Climate Change and Labor Productivity | Extreme heat reduces earnings and labor supply among daily-wage workers. |
| 1803 – Land Use, Food-Energy-Environment Trade-Offs & the SDGs | Sustainable development requires integrated policies across land, food, energy and biodiversity. | |
| Firms, workplace institutions & resilience | 1806 – Works Council Elections and Voter Turnout | Works council election turnout depends on workplace institutions, economic conditions and union support. |
| 1801 – Relative Productivity and SME Closure During COVID-19 | Low relative productivity increases SME closure risk during economic shocks. | |
| Technology, regional transformation & inequality | 1805 – Agglomeration, Complexity and Unequal Gains | Agglomeration raises income inequality, while economic complexity moderates this effect. |
| 1798 – How Amazon Shapes Local Labour Markets | Amazon entry lowers local wages and shifts incomes toward the lower end of the distribution. | |
| 1796 – Applications of Artificial Intelligence in the Vietnamese Economy | AI can raise productivity, but gains depend on skills, training and job quality. | |
| Education, health & human capital | 1800 – Education and Earnings in Europe | Additional education causally raises earnings, with particularly high returns to tertiary education. |
| 1799 – Labour Market and Health Effects of a Diabetes Warning | Diabetes-risk information changes health behavior and labor-market activity, with heterogeneous effects by age and gender. | |
| Migration attitudes & policy | 1797 – Perceptions of Immigrant Privilege and Immigration Policy Preferences | Perceived immigrant privilege is strongly associated with support for restrictive immigration policies. |
Papers
1808 Who Absorbs a School Day? School Schedules and Household Time Allocation – Download PDF
by Nozaki, Yuko
1807 Surviving the Daily Heat: Climate Change and Labor Productivity – Download PDF
by Bhattacharya, Leena & Kulshreshtha, Shobhit & van Soest, Arthur
1806 Opening the Black Box of Works Council Elections: Theory and Evidence on the Factors Influencing Voter Turnout – Download PDF
by Jirjahn, Uwe & Mohrenweiser, Jens & Smith, Stephen C.
1805 When agglomeration meets complexity: unequal gains across Italian provinces – Download PDF
by Cirillo, Valeria & Divella, Marialuisa & Ferrulli, Eustachio & Simone, Giuseppe
1804 Gender Convergence in Paid work, but Not in Care activities: Evidence from the Colombian National Time Use Surveys – Download PDF
by Campaña, Juan Carlos & Chomali, Laur
1803 Key Issues of Land Use, Land Cover, and Food-Energy-Environment Trade-Off: Revisiting MDGs in the light of Sustainable Development Goals – Download PDF
by Das, Gouranga G. & Paul, Saswati
1802 Sleeping Investment: A Life-Cycle Hypothesis – Download PDF
by Chung, Andy & Zhang, Junsen
1801 Relative Productivity and SME Closure During COVID-19: Exploring Optimal Productivity Levels for Firm Resilience – Download PDF
by Pandit, Rajendra & Stratton, Leslie S.
1800 Education and Earnings in Europe – Download PDF
by Patrinos, Harry Anthony & Rivera-Olvera, Angelica
1799 The Labour Market and Health Effects of a Diabetes Warning: Evidence of Gender and Age Differences from the Lifelines Cohort Study – Download PDF
by Annibali, Claudio & Bergemann, Annette & Alessie, Rob
1798 How Amazon shapes local labour markets: Impacts on income and employment across Italian municipalities – Download PDF
by Tramontano, Jacopo & Cirillo, Valeria & Guarascio, Dario
1797 Perceptions of Immigrant Privilege and Public Preferences for Immigration Policy: Evidence from Belgium – Download PDF
by Pfeifer, Teika & Lafleur, Jean-Michel & Marfouk, Abdeslam
1796 Applications of Artificial Intelligence in the Vietnamese Economy – Download PDF
by Rashidghalam, Masoomeh & Heshmati-Kim, Jieun & Heshmati, Almas
Ends;