Intra-Household Allocation, Beliefs, and Communication between Spouses in Kenya

Spousal experiments continue to report non-cooperative behavior, raising questions about potential interventions to increase intra-household efficiency. We conducted a field-laboratory experiment in Kenya where individuals in established marriages were asked to play several rounds of a trust game. We elicit beliefs about what spouses expect their partners to choose prior to observing their actions. In half of the rounds, spouses were allowed to communicate. We find evidence to reject both the unitary and cooperative models of the household as senders transfer on average 62% of their endowments resulting in an average loss of earnings of Ksh 175. We define concordance when spouse’s actions and beliefs match in at least 3 our of 4 rounds. We find that individuals in couples with concordant beliefs make less efficient choices, and this is driven by male senders. Communication only improves intra-household efficiency in discordant couples. We explore how the experimental results relate to conflicting responses between spouses over intra-household transfers, marital satisfaction, and trust