This paper applies the theory of relational contracts to make precise the idea that because households are engaged in a repeated non-cooperative game, Pareto efficient outcomes can be supported by self interest, given the specific pattern of specialisation and exchange which exists in the...

Empirical evidence suggests that money in the hands of mothers (as opposed to their husbands) benefits children. Does this observation imply that targeting transfers to women is good economic policy? We develop a series of noncooperative family bargaining models to understand what kind of...

This paper studies the design of couples' income taxation when consumption and labor supply decisions within the couple are made by maximizing a weighted sum of the spouses' utilities; bargaining weights are given but specific to each couple. Information structure and labor supply decisions...

We set out a general framework for cooperative household models, based on Samuelson's idea of a household welfare function, but extending it to incorporate the key insight from Nash bargaining models - the idea that the household's preference ordering over the utility profiles of its members...

We analyse the effect of parental risk preferences and a novel measure of maternal bargaining power over educational expenses - elicited via lab-in-the-field experiments in rural Côte d'Ivoire on the educational progression of boys and girls. Data from 135 couples and their children show that...

This paper bridges the financial market and the marriage market using a reference-dependent mechanism. Male-biased sex ratios induce families with sons to hold more risky assets, since competitive marital payment in a tight market raises the reference level of marriage expenditure for such...

This work studies the impact of accounting for intrahousehold inequality in the distribution of resources for the measurement of poverty. For the estimation of intrahousehold distribution of resources the study relies on collective Engel curves. For the poverty analysis, we propose a fuzzy...

The time allocated to household chores is substantial, with the burden falling disproportionately upon women. Further, social norms about how much work men and women should contribute in the home are likely to influence couples' housework allocation decisions and evaluations of their lot. Using...

The economic theory of fertility choice builds predominantly on the unitary model of the household, in which there is a single household utility function and potential intra-household disagreement is abstracted from. Empirical evidence suggests, however, that many (potential) mothers and fathers...

Leisure externalities across households have potentially very important implications for labor market regulations, but they have proven difficult to identify. This paper exploits the unique features of school holidays and regulations about paid leave in France to identify how changes in the...