The One

Haley is in a bind and can’t decide who she should spend her life with. Should she stick with Arvin, the successful scientist who has his life together, or should she go with Dylan, her high school boyfriend who is full of fun? Every decision we make, whether we realize it’s economics or not, has tradeoffs. There’s only so much time in our lives and we must make decisions. One of the difficult parts of “matching” is finding the right rate to minimize conflict and maximizing our happiness. Happiness, in this case, is known as interdependent. Her happiness will eventually be a function of her own utility, but also her spouse’s utility.

See more: assortative mating, interdependent utility functions, matching, opportunity costs, tradeoffs

Mitch and Phil Play Chicken

Claire and Cam want to flip a house, but Phil and Mitch are against it. Phil pretends he is for it leaving Mitch to put his foot down, but eventually Mitch decides to play the good cop as well and leave Phil to put the brakes on the house. If Phil and Mitch had agreed before hand to both be against the plan (cooperate), they could have come to the best outcome, but it was in Phil’s best interest to deviate and act like he supports Claire and Cam, leave Mitchel to take the full cost of the outcome. Mitchel then decides to defect as well and they are now both supporting a project they don’t believe in. This scene represents a more common version of prisoner’s dilemma in which both Phil and Mitchell would be better off cooperating, but they each have an incentive to defect.

See more: game theory, incentives, interdependent utility functions, prisoner’s dilemma, sequential moves

Playing with Dolls

Alex has been asked to babysit her cousin Lily. Lily wants to play with dolls during this time, but Alex tries to convince her instead to read a book that involves empowering women. Lily insists on playing with dolls, and the first doll she shows Alex is a wife who does not have a career, but shops.

See more: gender roles, nature vs. nurture, pre-market discrimination, societal discrimination, specialization

Kissed by the Devil

Gloria and Jay have been having issues with Baby Joe’s behavior, so Gloria consults a priest. Gloria seems to think the men in her family have been kissed by the devil, but the priest insists it is the families that shape who children become. This is a great clip to introduce the nature versus nurture debate and also to consider the role of omitted variable bias in determining the parents’ impact on children. Could there be some other factor that Gloria hasn’t considered?

See more: causation, correlation, nature vs. nurture, omitted variable bias

A 20-year Vacation

It is the first day back to school for the kids, but it’s also Claire’s first day at her new job working for her father, Jay. Phil tries to be supportive, but refers to the last 20 years that Claire has spent as a stay at home mom as a vacation. The Income Leisure Tradeoff model assumes that participants can decide between working at paid employment or spending their time in leisure, but household production is often encapsulated in leisure. The household production model recognizes that time spent at home in productive activities is different than time spent in leisure.

See more: employment, income leisure tradeoff, household labor supply, household production, labor force participation, specialization, tradeoffs, unemployment

Stay-at-Home Mom

It is career day at Luke’s school, and the teacher asks Claire to speak about her job as a stay at home mom. She points out that she actually has a lot of different jobs as a stay-at-home-mom. The household production model assumes that agents decide between working at paid work or working at home and producing things that they could have bought with income. Both yield some level of utility, but some partners will specialize in household production depending on the relative wages of the other partner.

One of the downsides of specializing in household labor is that people lose specific and general human capital associated with market work. While Claire would like to go back to work, it is hard to find a job after you have been out of the labor force for 15 years, mainly because everyone who didn’t drop out would have continued learning new skills. In labor economics, this is known as The Mommy Track.

See more: household labor supply, household production, human capital depreciation, job search, labor force, labor force participation, labor market, skills, tradeoffs, unemployment

Cam Gets a Job

With Lilly in school and Cam & Mitchell unsure about adopting another baby, Mitchell thinks it’s a good time for Cam to get a job. Mitchell works with his friend Longeness to secure Cam a job at a local boutique under the guise that the shop needs someone to work and Cam just happens to be available. Cam initially accepts because it seems like a great match for his tastes and skill set, but Jeoux lets the cat out of the bag that it wasn’t a sincere offer, and Cam is offended that Mitch thinks he is too lazy to get a job.

In the Household Production model, decision makers must decide whether to supply their labor for paid employment or supply their labor at home in household production. Cam lists many of the household production items that he produces with his labor, including paying bills, grocery shopping, and maintaining the house. Each of these items produce utility for the household, which could be purchased with Cam’s income. A secondary consideration of work, beyond the household production model is nonpecuiniary benefits of work like social interaction and purpose.

See more: household production, human capital, labor force, labor-leisure tradeoff, labor supply, marginally attached, nonpecuniary benefits, search, tastes and preferences, tradeoffs, unemployment

Who’s the Wife?

Cam’s dad is down for a visit, and Jay is upset because he feels like he treats Mitchell like the “woman” in the relationship. Jay confronts Cams dad and they realize that gender roles are not the same today as they were when they were growing up, but it makes both of them feel a little better to ascribe certain traditionally female characteristics to their son’s partner.

See more: bargaining power, comparative advantage, gender roles, household labor supply, household production, specialization

Fallback Turkey

It’s Thanksgiving. For the first time, Claire is leaving the cooking to Phil…. or is she? She’s not. She made a fallback turkey, just in case Phil’s doesn’t work out. This demonstrates fallback position. Economists who study the family suggest that a person will stay in a relationship as long as the in-relationship utility is higher than the fallback position. While Claire isn’t considering leaving Phil for her fallback turkey, this clip can be used to discuss fallback positions. Claire has entered into a contract with Phil in allowing him to cook the family turkey. She will remain in that contract only as long as the benefit of eating Phil’s turkey is greater than the utility of eating her own turkey.

See more: fallback position, interdependent utility functions, marriage, risk, risk aversion, trust

It’s All About Dignity

Mitch is working on a big case about the rights of vulnerable workers. In it, he argues that a company is preying on the lack of options available to people who are homeless and hiring them for extremely low wages. He believes that this is a violation of labor laws and tries to get the notice of the press. At the same time, Cam is stealing the spotlight as a successful high school football coach who is openly gay.

Traditional economics holds that trades which are voluntary (such as employment) are mutually beneficial. As such, some might argue that the company isn’t taking advantage of its workers since the workers benefit from the employment opportunity. Political economics suggests that you cannot ignore the power inequality between the company and the workers. When a large power imbalance is present, exploitation is possible.

A second use of this clip comes from the role of spouses in the household production model. The happiness of each individual party is important, but the other partner’s utility enters the utility function of each individual. This interdependency is important because it explains why some partners may opt for a decision that doesn’t maximize their own utility, but instead do so because it maximizes their partner’s utility.

See more: altruism, externalities, income inequality, interdependent utility functions, labor law, living wage, negative externalities, political economics, private benefits, social costs, specialization, structural unemployment

Columbia Clothing Coincidence

Jay got new glasses that make him look like an old man but they work really well. So well that he realizes that Gloria’s family members in Columbia are wearing his old clothes. Notice that Gloria says that they sometimes send the clothes back. In the US, people frequently donate clothing to people in less developed countries. Many economists argue that this is counterproductive and leads to a surplus of clothing in these countries. That surplus can hurt markets and cost jobs.

See more: charity, donations, efficiency, emerging markets, gift giving, growth, interdependent utility functions, preferences, utility

Lily Gets a Job

Cameron gets Lilly a job as a child actor, but Mitchell is not excited about it and says no. Cameron doesn’t understand why Mitchell thinks he should have the final say in household decisions. Theoretically, decision making in the household production model tends to lean toward the spouse with greater access to resources (which Cam notes in the clip), but it doesn’t mean that partner gets to make all of the decisions. The unitary model assumes one spouse makes all the decisions as a social planner, but the bargaining model means that decisions are shared between partners.

See more: access to resources, bargaining power, household labor supply, household production, interdependent utility functions

Claire Gets Sick

Claire is feeling under the weather but has too much to do. Phil offers to help her out with her errands and pick up some slack until she feels better. One of the gains of partnerships is that if one person goes down, the other can pick up the slack.

See more: gains from trade, gains to marriage, risk pooling, risk sharing, utility

Role Reversal

After Mitchell quit his job, Cameron went to work to support them. Both Mitchell and Cameron think their partner is happy with this role reversal, but both are miserable and want to return to their original arrangement. Neither wants to say anything to other, because they are focused on maximizing their combined utility rather than their own, but they aren’t share their disutility.

See more: added worker effect, division of labor, household labor supply, household production, interdependent utility functions, labor supply, preferences, specialization, unemployment

Working Girl

Claire is going to meet an old friend from work, but her kids are surprised to find out that she once had a job. She describes why she chose to leave the workforce. The household production model allows for workers to determine if they would prefer to produce items for household consumption or work in the paid labor force to purchase those same item. Claire must have steep indifference curves given she quit the labor force to produce household items.

See more: comparative advantage, division of labor, household labor supply, household production labor force, labor force participation, labor supply, preferences, specialization, tradeoffs

Opposite’s Attract

Mitchell complains to Jay about Cam being too nice, and Jay complains to Mitchell about Gloria not liking his dog butler. In the beginning of the scene, the two complain about the actions of their partners and how it imposes a cost on them that they feel their partner is not considering. Jay loves his dog butler, but he also doesn’t want to upset his wife. Cam spends a lot of time helping people and animal, but Mitchell feels it is sometimes a burden.

Jay notes that they are both with people who are very different and that maybe that makes their relationships better. The concept of interdependent utility functions is that people maximize combined utility of a household/relationship even though that means they way not be maximizing their own individual utility functions.

See more: assortative mating, gains from trade, gains to marriage, interdependent utility functions, matching, preferences, utility

The Value of Guilt

When Phil had a health scare, Claire gets dressed up for the hot firemen who are coming for him. She admits this to Phil before his procedure and he reminds her of it upon waking. After Claire apologizes, Phil says he will be fine with time even though he is fine with it now. Phil believes Claires guilt will grow over time giving him more bargaining power in the future.

See more: bargaining power, markets, prices, reciprocity, trade, value

Morning Routine

When the kids are back in school, it means that Phil and Claire go into production mode to make sure everyone is out of the house on time. In this one-on-one aside, Phil is under the impression that both he and Claire get up at 7 in the morning to start taking care of the kids. Claire informs him that she actually starts her day as a stay at home mom at 6 in the morning. Because Claire has a comparative advantage in getting the kids ready for school in the morning, Phil gets an extra hour of sleep. In the household model of labor supply, partners often divide the tasks based on specialization, not necessarily on equitable terms.

See more: comparative advantage, division of labor, household production, household labor supply, interdependent utility functions, labor supply, specialization

Great Parents

In an earlier scene, Mitchell bumps his daughters head on a doorframe, but then begins to worry that he may not be ready to have a child. Mitch sees how much Lily likes Cam and how good of a caretaker he is and begins to worry that he is a worse parent, but Cam reassures him that they are both great parents because they complement each other. Their decision to specialize in particular tasks allows them to complete more work together and both recognize they wouldn’t accomplish nearly as much if each had to go it alone.

See more: comparative advantage, complements, division of labor, household production, household labor supply, interdependent utility functions, labor supply, specialization