IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/halshs-00429609.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Household Behavior and Social Norms : A Conjugal Contract Model

Author

Listed:
  • Elisabeth Cudeville

    (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Magali Recoules

    (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

Abstract

We present a model of household behavior to explore the complex interactions between the decision-making process within the household and social norms. The household is viewed as two separate spheres – the female and the male – both linked by a public good and a "conjugal contract" trough which spouses exchange resources. The conjugal contract negotiated within the couple is partly influenced by social norms given the conformism of individuals. Social norms are endogenously determined as the average conjugal contract. We find that the closer spouses' wages are in the labor market, the more equally they share household tasks. Wage policies promoting gender wage equality lead all couples to renegotiate the terms of their conjugal contract, which in turn changes social norms. Even though spouses aim at maximizing the household's welfare, the resulting equilibrium allocation is not Pareto efficient and inefficiency increases with social conformism.

Suggested Citation

  • Elisabeth Cudeville & Magali Recoules, 2009. "Household Behavior and Social Norms : A Conjugal Contract Model," Post-Print halshs-00429609, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00429609
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00429609
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00429609/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Diba, Behzad T. & Grossman, Herschel I., 1988. "Rational inflationary bubbles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 35-46, January.
    2. Diane L. Wolf, 1990. "Daughters, Decisions and Domination: An Empirical and Conceptual Critique of Household Strategies," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 21(1), pages 43-74, January.
    3. Patricia Apps & Ray Rees, 2007. "Household Models: An Historical Perspective," CESifo Working Paper Series 2172, CESifo.
    4. Sayyid Salman Rizavi & Catherine Sofer, 2009. "The Division of Labour within the household: Is There any Escape from Traditional Gender Roles?," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-00642049, HAL.
    5. Esther Duflo & Christopher Udry, 2003. "Intrahousehold Resource Allocation in Côte D'ivoire: Social Norms, Separate Accounts and Consumption Choices," Working Papers 857, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    6. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2002. "Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1231-1294.
    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. Jean Paul Azam & Robert Bates & Bruno Biais, 2009. "Political Predation And Economic Development," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(2), pages 255-277, July.
    2. Leeson, Peter T., 2005. "Endogenizing fractionalization," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 75-98, June.
    3. Eric Gaisie, 2017. "Living standards in pre-independent Ghana: evidence from household budgets," HHB Working Papers Series 7, The Historical Household Budgets Project.
    4. Heineck, Guido & Süssmuth, Bernd, 2013. "A different look at Lenin’s legacy: Social capital and risk taking in the Two Germanies," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 789-803.
    5. Kutuk, Yasin, 2022. "Inequality convergence: A world-systems theory approach," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 150-165.
    6. Scott Gehlbach & Konstantin Sonin & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2010. "Businessman Candidates," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(3), pages 718-736, July.
    7. Patrick Legros & Andrew F. Newman & Eugenio Proto, 2014. "Smithian Growth through Creative Organization," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(5), pages 796-811, December.
    8. Antonio Andres & Carlyn Ramlogan-Dobson, 2011. "Is Corruption Really Bad for Inequality? Evidence from Latin America," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(7), pages 959-976.
    9. Guy Michaels, 2011. "The Long Term Consequences of Resource‐Based Specialisation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(551), pages 31-57, March.
    10. Lewkowicz, Jacek & Woźniak, Michał & Wrzesiński, Michał, 2022. "COVID-19 and erosion of democracy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    11. Mika Nieminen, 2017. "Patterns of international capital flows and their implications for developing countries," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-171, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Litina, Anastasia, 2012. "Unfavorable land endowment, cooperation, and reversal of fortune," MPRA Paper 39702, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Astrid Sneyers & Anneleen Vandeplas, 2013. "Girl Power in Agricultural Production: How Much Does it Yield? A Case-Study on the Dairy Sector in India," LICOS Discussion Papers 34113, LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance, KU Leuven.
    14. Maximiliano Marzetti & Rok Spruk, 2023. "Long-Term Economic Effects of Populist Legal Reforms: Evidence from Argentina," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 65(1), pages 60-95, March.
    15. Steven N. Durlauf & Andros Kourtellos & Chih Ming Tan, 2012. "Is God in the details? A reexamination of the role of religion in economic growth," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(7), pages 1059-1075, November.
    16. Ola Olsson, 2005. "Geography and institutions: Plausible and implausible linkages," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 167-194, December.
    17. Una Okonkwo Osili & Anna L. Paulson, 2006. "What can we learn about financial access from U.S. immigrants?," Working Paper Series WP-06-25, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    18. Matthias Doepke, 2007. "The Research Agenda: Matthias Doepke on the Transition from Stagnation to Growth," EconomicDynamics Newsletter, Review of Economic Dynamics, vol. 8(2), April.
    19. Roberto Foa & Anna Nemirovskaya & Elena Mostovova, 2013. "Internal Empires I: Social Institutions of the Frontier," HSE Working papers WP BRP 09/SOC/2013, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    20. Knack, Steve & Xu, Lixin Colin, 2017. "Unbundling institutions for external finance: Worldwide firm-level evidence," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 215-232.

    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:hal:journl:halshs-00429609. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.