Using longitudinal data on private consumption from South Korea, this article examines the marital balance of power between spouses in a dynamic setting by allowing for unobserved heterogeneity at the household level and spouses’ time-constant unobserved bargaining power. I find that unobserved power plays a significant role in intrahousehold resource allocation. The income pooling hypothesis is no longer rejected after accounting for unobserved power. Relative spousal earnings may be a good proxy for the long-term balance of power to an extent that cross-sectional variation in relative earnings across households reflects the pattern of spousal matching. However within-marriage changes in relative earnings do not induce any significant resource transfer between spouses. The balance of bargaining power is stable within marriage.
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