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Confronting the Robinson Crusoe paradigm with household-size heterogeneity

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Author Info
Christos Koulovatianos () (Goethe Uniyversity Frankfurt, University of Vienna)
Carsten Schröder (Free University of Berlin, University of Kiel)
Ulrich Schmidt (Kiel Institue for Worl Economy)
Abstract

Modern macroeconomics empirically addresses economy-wide incentives behind economic actions by using insights from the way a single representative household would behave. This analytical approach requires that incentives of the poor and the rich are strictly aligned. In empirical analysis a challenging complication is that consumer and income data are typically available at the household level, and individuals living in multimember households have the potential to share goods within the household. The analytical approach of modern macroeconomics would require that intra-household sharing is also strictly aligned across the rich and the poor. Here we have designed a survey method that allows the testing of this stringent property of intra-household sharing and find that it holds: once expenditures for basic needs are subtracted from disposable household income, household-size economies implied by the remainder household incomes are the same for the rich and the poor.

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Paper provided by Center for Financial Studies in its series CFS Working Paper Series with number 2008/24.

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Length: 81 pages
Date of creation: 07 Aug 2008
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Handle: RePEc:cfs:cfswop:wp200824

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Related research
Keywords: Linear Aggregation; Representative Consumer; Equivalence Scales; Survey Method; Household-Size Economies;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
C42 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Survey Methods
E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth
D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
D91 - Microeconomics - - Intertemporal Choice and Growth - - - Intertemporal Consumer Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving
D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty

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  4. Koulovatianos, Christos & Schroder, Carsten & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2005. "On the income dependence of equivalence scales," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 967-996, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Vermeulen, Frederic, 2002. " Collective Household Models: Principles and Main Results," Journal of Economic Surveys, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 16(4), pages 533-64, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Pollak, Robert A, 1971. "Additive Utility Functions and Linear Engel Curves," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(116), pages 401-14, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Francesco Caselli & Jaume Ventura, 2000. "A Representative Consumer Theory of Distribution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 909-926, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Chatterjee, Satyajit, 1994. "Transitional dynamics and the distribution of wealth in a neoclassical growth model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 97-119, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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