Economic Evaluation of Time¶
A psychological frame in which a person appraises uses of their time through monetary return or forgone earnings.
Core Idea¶
An economic evaluation of time is a person's psychological frame for considering uses of their own time through possible earnings or forgone income. Pfeffer and DeVoe describe thinking of time chiefly in monetary terms and treating it as a scarce resource to use efficiently.[^ref-6e740a181eaa] The defining feature is the person's evaluative criterion, not an employer's pay arrangement or an outside analyst's calculation. DP07 measured salience after a wage prompt; AMJ measured stated volunteering willingness after one.[ref-adb38b5f08ba][ref-3bb0ede8e821] Neither prompt, hourly pay, nor any outcome defines the frame.
Scope of Application¶
The frame applies to human time-allocation judgments when monetary return can enter the person's appraisal:
- Paid-work tradeoffs. A person considers more work hours for more earnings.[^ref-adb38b5f08ba]
- Unpaid volunteering. A wage cue may affect stated willingness to give time without pay.[^ref-3bb0ede8e821]
- Hourly-pay workplaces. Pay practices can make a time rate noticeable, without defining the frame.[^ref-6e740a181eaa]
- Workers with little hourly-pay exposure. In one study, a randomized wage calculation raised measured economic-criteria salience.[^ref-adb38b5f08ba]
- Leisure and enjoyable activity. A money rate may leave experiential or relational value unexpressed.[^ref-6e740a181eaa]
These are settings for the same frame, not a claim that every worker uses it or that a prompt changes later behavior.
Clarity¶
Ask whose time is at issue, whether that person attends to possible earnings, and what was actually measured. An hourly-pay label, a wage-calculation prompt, a stated preference, and diary-recorded behavior are different observations.[ref-adb38b5f08ba][ref-3bb0ede8e821] An analyst can calculate an opportunity cost without showing that the actor thought in monetary terms. The frame can be present while the person chooses rest or volunteering.
Manages Complexity¶
Separating criterion, cue, and outcome keeps related studies from collapsing into one causal story. In DeVoe and Pfeffer's paid-work experiment, the wage calculation was randomized and economic-criteria salience and stated willingness were measured.[^ref-adb38b5f08ba] In their volunteering experiment, a related prompt changed stated willingness for a nonhourly subgroup, but that study did not directly measure the proposed internal mediator or later volunteering.[^ref-3bb0ede8e821] Observed pay-system differences require still more caution because workers and jobs differ.
Abstract Reasoning¶
Three moves help: locate the person's monetary criterion, distinguish a possible activating cue from the frame itself, and match each conclusion to its observed outcome. The paid-work study supports a bounded account of a prompt, measured salience, and stated willingness; it does not supply a mediator measure for the separate volunteering experiment.[ref-adb38b5f08ba][ref-3bb0ede8e821] A monetary view can make forgone earnings visible without converting every unpaid activity into dollars or determining which option wins.[^ref-6e740a181eaa]
Knowledge Transfer¶
The same question travels within time-allocation research from paid work to volunteering: does the person appraise an hour through money, and how can the study tell? DP07 recorded paid-work willingness and salience; AMJ recorded stated volunteering willingness.[ref-adb38b5f08ba][ref-3bb0ede8e821] The transferable criterion has different measurement limits. Opportunity Cost is a useful neighboring comparison, but its objective forgone-value calculation can exist without this psychological frame. Beyond a person's monetary appraisal of their own time, “putting a price on things” is an analogy rather than this entry's identity; no strict catalog parent has been approved.
Neighborhood in Abstraction Space¶
Economic Evaluation of Time sits in a sparse region of the domain-specific corpus (100th percentile for distinctiveness): few abstractions share its structure, so a faithful description tends to retrieve it precisely.
Family — Self-Perception Biases & Heuristics (22 abstractions)
Nearest neighbors
- Protected Self-Directed Time — 0.73
- Typical versus Maximum Performance — 0.72
- Barnum Effect — 0.72
- Denomination Effect — 0.72
- IKEA Effect — 0.72
Computed from structural-signature embeddings · 2026-10-17
References¶
[^ref-adb38b5f08ba]: Sanford E. DeVoe and Jeffrey Pfeffer, “When Time Is Money: The Effect of Hourly Payment on the Evaluation of Time,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 104 (2007), 1–13, especially Studies 1–3 on article pp. 3–12 and Study 3 Table 4 and Figures 2–3. Full author-hosted original article: https://www-2.rotman.utoronto.ca/facbios/file/devoe%20and%20pfeffer%2C%20obhdp%2C%202007.pdf. [^ref-3bb0ede8e821]: Sanford E. DeVoe and Jeffrey Pfeffer, “Hourly Payment and Volunteering: The Effect of Organizational Practices on Decisions About Time Use,” Academy of Management Journal 50 (2007), 783–798, especially Study 1 printed pp. 785–791 and Study 2 printed pp. 791–795. Full author-hosted original article: https://jeffreypfeffer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/AMJ-Aug2007-17.pdf. [^ref-6e740a181eaa]: Jeffrey Pfeffer and Sanford E. DeVoe, “The Economic Evaluation of Time: Organizational Causes and Individual Consequences,” Research in Organizational Behavior 32 (2012), 47–62, abstract at one-based PDF p. 2 / printed p. 47, definition repeated at PDF p. 3 / printed p. 48, and theory of personal consequences at printed pp. 55–59. Full author-hosted original synthesis: https://jeffreypfeffer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/DeVoe_RIOB-Bhav-2012-7.pdf.