IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/boc/bocoec/758.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

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

Author

Listed:
  • Geoffrey Dunbar

    (Simon Fraser University)

  • Arthur Lewbel

    (Boston College)

  • Krishna Pendakur

    (Simon Fraser University)

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 varies 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.

Suggested Citation

  • Geoffrey Dunbar & Arthur Lewbel & Krishna Pendakur, 2010. "Children's Resources in Collective Households: Identification, Estimation and an Application to Child Poverty in Malawi," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 758, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 31 Jan 2012.
    • Handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:758
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://fmwww.bc.edu/EC-P/wp758.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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.
    2. Elaina Rose, 1999. "Consumption Smoothing and Excess Female Mortality in Rural India," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(1), pages 41-49, February.
    3. Deaton, Angus S, 1989. "Looking for Boy-Girl Discrimination in Household Expenditure Data," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 3(1), pages 1-15, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bargain, Olivier & Donni, Olivier & Kwenda, Prudence, 2014. "Intrahousehold distribution and poverty: Evidence from Côte d'Ivoire," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 262-276.
    2. Olivier Bargain & Olivier Donni & Prudence Kwenda, 2011. "Intrahousehold Distribution and Child Poverty: Theory and Evidence from Côte d'Ivoire," Working Papers 2011-031, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    3. Bargain, Olivier B. & Donni, Olivier & Magejo, Prudence, 2011. "Intrahousehold Distribution and Child Poverty: Theory and Evidence from Côte d’Ivoire," IZA Discussion Papers 6029, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Bargain, Olivier & Donni, Olivier, 2012. "Expenditure on children: A Rothbarth-type method consistent with scale economies and parents' bargaining," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 792-813.
    5. Catalina Martinez, 2015. "Doing Well by Doing Good? Empirical Evidence from Microfinance," CFD Working Papers 06-2015, Centre for Finance and Development, The Graduate Institute.
    6. Wilman J. Iglesias & Alexandre B. Coelho, 2020. "Poverty and inequality within Brazilian households: an application of a collective consumption model," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(4), pages 1923-1952, April.
    7. Olivier Bargain & Guy Lacroix & Luca Tiberti, 2021. "Intrahousehold Resource Allocation and Individual Poverty: Assessing Collective Model Predictions against Direct Evidence on Sharing," Working Papers hal-03432676, HAL.
    8. Monazza Aslam & Geeta Gandhi Kingdon, 2008. "Gender and household education expenditure in Pakistan," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(20), pages 2573-2591.
    9. Bargain, Olivier & Lacroix, Guy & Tiberti, Luca, 2018. "Validating the Collective Model of Household Consumption Using Direct Evidence on Sharing," IZA Discussion Papers 11653, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Christine Barnet-Verzat & François-Charles Wolff, 2003. "Choix d'éducation et composition par sexe de la fratrie," Economie & Prévision, La Documentation Française, vol. 157(1), pages 97-118.
    11. Roland Pongou, 2020. "Is Excess (Fe)Male Mortality Caused by the Prenatal Environment, Child Biology, or Parental Discrimination? New Evidence from Male-Female Twins," Working Papers 2008E Classification-I15,, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.
    12. Olivier Bargain, 2022. "Income Sources, Intra-Household Allocation And Individual Poverty," Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Working Paper Series 121, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    13. Wilman Javier Iglesias Pinedo & Alexandre Bragança Coelho, 2018. "Using A Collective Model To Evaluate Intra-Household Inequality And Individual Poverty In Brazil," Anais do XLIV Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 44th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 131, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    14. Baten, Joerg & de Pleijt, Alexandra M., 2022. "Female autonomy generated successful long-term human capital development: Evidence from 16th to 19th century Europe," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    15. Francisca Antman, 2015. "Gender discrimination in the allocation of migrant household resources," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(3), pages 565-592, July.
    16. Basu, Bharati, 2021. "Do institutional norms affect behavioral preferences: A view from gender bias in the intra-household expenditure allocation in Iran," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 118-134.
    17. Geoffrey Lancaster & Pushkar Maitra & Ranjan Ray, 2008. "Household Expenditure Patterns and Gender Bias: Evidence from Selected Indian States," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(2), pages 133-157.
    18. Kirchberger, Martina, 2020. "Intra-household allocation of time and money across siblings," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 361-377.
    19. Getachew Yirga Belete & Martina Menon & Federico Perali, 2022. "Children’s Resources and Poverty: A Collective Consumption Evidence from Ethiopia," Working Papers 1, SITES.
    20. Esther Duflo, 2012. "Women Empowerment and Economic Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(4), pages 1051-1079, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Collective Model; Cost of Children; Bargaining Power; Identification; Sharing rule; Demand Systems; Engel Curves;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • C31 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions; Social Interaction Models
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:boc:bocoec:758. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 bibliographic 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.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/debocus.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.