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Prompted by the English translation of H.H. Gossen’s The Laws of Human Relations and the Rules of Human Action Derived Therefrom (1983) edited by Georgescu Roegen, and also inspired by Linder’s The Harried Leisure Class (1970), a new approach to consumption theory emphasizes the fundamental role of time in individual economic behavior.

The paper highlights the analytical and methodological differences between the standard treatment of time as ‘foregone earnings’ à la Becker and the role of time in the new approach, whose relevance can also be assessed in the light of the data to be collected in a time-use and consumption expenditure survey.

Time use; Consumption theory; empirical evidence