Marital Matching, Economies of Scale, and Intrahousehold Allocations

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Cherchye, Laurens; De Rock, Bram; Surana, Khushboo; Vermeulen, Frederic
• 署名单位: KU Leuven; Universite Libre de Bruxelles; University of York - UK
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_00829
• 发表日期: 2020-10
• 页码: 823-837
• 关键词: household consumption; marriage; MODEL; identification; EQUIVALENCE; CHILDREN; poverty

摘要

We propose a novel nonparametric method to empirically identify economies of scale in multiperson household consumption. We assume consumption technologies that define the public and private nature of expenditures through Barten scales. Our method (solely) exploits preference information revealed by a cross-section of household observations while accounting for fully unobserved preference heterogeneity. An application to data drawn from the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics shows that the method yields informative results on scale economies and intrahousehold allocation patterns. In addition, it allows us to define individual compensation schemes required to preserve the same consumption level in case of marriage dissolution or spousal death.