Intra-Household Bargaining in Ivory Coast: Experimental Evidence from Rural Areas

This paper proposes a novel experimental measure of women's relative bargaining power, relates this measure to expenditures on various household public goods, and studies its determinants. A key question we address in the process is whether higher bargaining power for women translates into increased allocation of resources towards public goods. We find that men prioritise food expenditures, women prioritise the transfers to parents and both show similar revealed preferences with respect to children's educational expenditures. The bargaining power of the woman over the three categories of expenditures of interest is, in turn, correlated with the education of the wife, the income of the husband and the bride price. The results contribute to the debate on the superior concern of the woman about child welfare and could have interesting policy implications..