Paying someone else to fold your socks is a way to maximize your own earnings and those of the sock folder. Even as penniless graduate students, the economists Jon Steinsson and Emi Nakamura borrowed money to pay people to do their household chores, calculating that “spending an extra hour working on a paper was better for their lifetime expected earnings than spending that same hour vacuuming.”
一个新兴研究领域是“生活外包”。花钱雇人帮你叠袜子是实现你自身和叠袜子者收入最大化的一个办法。在生活拮据的研究生阶段，经济学家琼·斯坦森（Jon Steinsson）和艾米·纳卡穆拉（Emi Nakamura）就借钱雇人负责家务活，认为“在论文上多花一小时带来的终身预期收入比花在吸尘器上更大。”