Using a very large sample of matched author-referee pairs, we examine how referees' and authors' genders affect the referees' recommendations. Relying on changing author-referee matches, we find no evidence of gender differences among referees in charitableness, nor is there any effect of the interaction between the referees' and authors' genders. With substantial laboratory research showing gender differences in fairness, the results suggest that outside the laboratory, an ethos of objectivity can overcome possible tendencies toward same-group favoritism or opposite-group discrimination.

Economists have devoted substantial attention to firms' supply of variety, but little to consumers' demand for variety. Employing the framework of home production, we trace differences in demand to differences in the opportunity costs of activities, associated with investments in human capital. Schooling alters time costs and changes the variety of activities household members choose. Time budgets from Australia, Israel, and West Germany show that higher own and spouses' incomes raise variety (suggesting positive income effects). Education increases variety independent of income and earnings; part of its impact goes beyond a correlation of educational attainment with preferences for variety.

Social commentators have pointed to problems of workers who face “time stress”—an absence of sufficient time to accomplish all their tasks. An economic theory views time stress as reflecting how tightly the time constraint binds households. Time stress will be more prevalent in households with higher full earnings and whose members work longer in the market or on “required” homework. Evidence from Australia (2001), Germany (2002), the United States (2003), and Korea (1999) corroborates the theory. Adults in households with higher earnings perceive more time stress for the same amount of time spent in market work and household work. The importance of higher full earnings in generating time stress is not small, particularly in the United States—much is “yuppie kvetch.”

California's longstanding requirement that most women receive time-and-a-half pay for workhours beyond eight in one day was extended to men in 1980. Analyzing Current Population Survey data from 1973, 1985, and 1991, we find that this overtime penalty substantially reduced the amount of daily overtime worked by California men relative to men in other states. Comparisons that use women to control for California-specific shocks show even stronger effects. The estimates imply a price elasticity of demand for overtime hours of at least 20.5.

Economists' productivity over their careers and as measured by publication in leading journals declines very sharply with age. There is no difference by age in the probability that an article submitted to a leading journal will be accepted. Rates of declining productivity are no greater among the very top publishers than among others, and the probability of acceptance is increasingly related to the author's quality rather than the author's age.