Children's Resources in Collective Households: Identification, Estimation, and an Application to Child Poverty in Malawi

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Dunbar, Geoffrey R.; Lewbel, Arthur; Pendakur, Krishna
• 署名单位: Simon Fraser University; Boston College
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.103.1.438
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 438-471
• 关键词: efficient intrahousehold allocations; models; tests

摘要

The share of household resources devoted to children is hard to identify because consumption is measured at the household level and goods can be shared. Using semiparametric restrictions on individual preferences within a collective model, we identify how total household resources are divided up among household members by observing how each family member's expenditures on a single private good like clothing vary with income and family size. Using data from Malawi we show how resources devoted to wives and children vary by family size and structure, and we find that standard poverty indices understate the incidence of child poverty. (JEL I31, I32, J12, J13, O12, O15)