IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejapp/v7y2015i2p135-74.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do Opposites Detract? Intrahousehold Preference Heterogeneity and Inefficient Strategic Savings

Author

Listed:
  • Simone Schaner

Abstract

This paper uses a field experiment to test whether intrahousehold heterogeneity in discount factors leads to inefficient strategic savings behavior. I gave married couples in rural Kenya the opportunity to open both joint and individual bank accounts at randomly assigned interest rates. I also directly elicited discount factors for all individuals in the experiment. Couples who are well matched on discount factors are less likely to use costly individual accounts and respond robustly to relative rates of return between accounts, while their poorly matched peers do not. Consequently, poorly matched couples forgo significantly more interest earnings on their savings. (JEL D13, D14, J12, O12)

Suggested Citation

  • Simone Schaner, 2015. "Do Opposites Detract? Intrahousehold Preference Heterogeneity and Inefficient Strategic Savings," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 135-174, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:7:y:2015:i:2:p:135-74
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/app.20130271
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/app.20130271
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/data/0702/2013-0271_data.zip
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/ds/0702/2013-0271_ds.zip
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/app/0702/2013-0271_app.pdf
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:7:y:2015:i:2:p:135-74. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.