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Determinants and Consequences of Bargaining Power in Households

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Author Info
Leora Friedberg
Anthony Webb
Abstract

A growing literature offers indirect evidence that the distribution of bargaining power within a household influences decisions made by the household. The indirect evidence links household outcomes to variables that are assumed to influence the distribution of power within the household. In this paper, we have data on whether a husband or wife in the Health and Retirement Study %u201Chas the final say%u201D when making major decisions in a household. We use this variable to analyze determinants and some consequences of bargaining power. Our analysis overcomes endogeneity problems arising in many earlier studies and constitutes a missing link confirming the importance of household bargaining models. We find that decision-making power depends on plausible individual variables and also influences important household outcomes, with the second set of results much stronger than the first set. Current and lifetime earnings have significant but moderate effects on decision-making power. On the other hand, decision-making power has important effects on financial decisions like stock market investment and total wealth accumulation and may help explain, for example, the relatively high poverty rate among widows.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 12367.

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Date of creation: Jul 2006
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12367

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Personal Finance
D91 - Microeconomics - - Intertemporal Choice and Growth - - - Intertemporal Consumer Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving
G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure

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  6. M. Browning & P. A. Chiappori, 1998. "Efficient Intra-Household Allocations: A General Characterization and Empirical Tests," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(6), pages 1241-1278, November.
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  7. Jennifer Ward-Batts, 2003. "Out of the Wallet and into the Purse: Using Micro Data to Test Income Pooling," Claremont Colleges Working Papers 2003-10, Claremont Colleges. [Downloadable!]
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  15. Jianakoplos, Nancy Ammon & Bernasek, Alexandra, 1998. "Are Women More Risk Averse?," Economic Inquiry, Oxford University Press, vol. 36(4), pages 620-30, October.
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Alberto Alesina & Andrea Ichino & Loukas Karabarbounis, 2007. "Gender Based Taxation and the Division of Family Chores," IZA Discussion Papers 3233, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Julie L. Hotchkiss & Robert E. Moore, 2007. "Assessing the welfare impact of the 2001 tax reform on dual-earner families," Working Paper 2007-27, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. [Downloadable!]
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