Master list of functionalities for this module and main function

[rickecon]

This module hrs_by_age.py should be imported for use in other programs by a line like,

import hrs_by_age as hrage

the main functionality of which should be importing the use of the hrs_by_age() function, which has the following form.

hrs_age = hrs_by_age(age_bins, l_tilde, beg_mmyy, end_mmyy, web=True,
                     dir=None, graph=False)

The inputs and outputs have the following definitions:

• hrs_age = (S,) vector, per-period hours by age as a percent of l_tilde
• age_bins = (S,) vector, beginning cutoff ages for each age bin
• l_tilde = scalar > 1, model time endowment for each life period
• beg_mmyy = length 4 string, numeric two-digit month and numeric last-two-digits of four-digit year for beginning month-year of data period
• end_mmyy = length 4 string, numeric two-digit month and numeric last-two-digits of four-digit year for ending month-year of data period
• web = boolean, =True if get data from NBER data website
• dir = string, directory of local folder where data reside
• graph = boolean, =True if save plot of hrs_age

The following is a list of the functionalities that this function hrs_by_age() should have.

1. Should take an arbitrary number of bins and bin sizes through the age_bins input.

• This functionality will have to extrapolate values of hours by age for any age above 79 or below 15. However, the lower bound will probably not bind.

2. Should take an arbitrary maximum labor endowment per period l_tilde.
3. User can specify what month-year date range to use from the CPS monthly data.
4. User can specify whether the function should go get the data directly off the web or whether it should get the data from a directory on the local computer using the web boolean input.
5. If the user specifies that the data should be taken from a local directory web=False, then the user specifies the path of the local directory of the data using the dir input.
6. The user can specify with the graph boolean whether or not to save a plot of the hrs_age object.

• This is where we could have some nice augmented visualization tools (e.g., Bokeh, JavaScript).