IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v103y2013i1p438-71.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Children's Resources in Collective Households: Identification, Estimation, and an Application to Child Poverty in Malawi

Author

Listed:
  • Geoffrey R. Dunbar
  • Arthur Lewbel
  • Krishna Pendakur

Abstract

The share of household resources devoted to children is hard to identify because consumption is measured at the household level and goods can be shared. Using semiparametric restrictions on individual preferences within a collective model, we identify how total household resources are divided up among household members by observing how each family member's expenditures on a single private good like clothing vary with income and family size. Using data from Malawi we show how resources devoted to wives and children vary by family size and structure, and we find that standard poverty indices understate the incidence of child poverty. (JEL I31, I32, J12, J13, O12, O15)

Suggested Citation

  • Geoffrey R. Dunbar & Arthur Lewbel & Krishna Pendakur, 2013. "Children's Resources in Collective Households: Identification, Estimation, and an Application to Child Poverty in Malawi," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(1), pages 438-471, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:103:y:2013:i:1:p:438-71
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.103.1.438
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.103.1.438
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/aer/data/feb2013/20100732_data.zip
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/aer/data/feb2013/20100732_app.pdf
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anyck Dauphin & Abdel‐Rahmen El Lahga & Bernard Fortin & Guy Lacroix, 2011. "Are Children Decision‐Makers within the Household?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(553), pages 871-903, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists or Wikipedia pages:
    1. Children's Resources in Collective Households: Identification, Estimation, and an Application to Child Poverty in Malawi (AER 2013) in ReplicationWiki

    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:aecrev:v:103:y:2013:i:1:p:438-71. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

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

    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.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.