Intra-household Experiments: a survey and some methodological observations

Experiments with family groups are rare, but since many decisions are taken at the household level or occur within the household it is an important area to investigate. I discuss some of the methodological challenges involved in doing experiments with couples and families and consider major areas that remain yet to be explored. While general themes from the research are still emerging, there is little evidence of efficiency in intra-household decisions. Moreover, deviations from standard models of microeconomics seem to be in line with those seen in the anomalies literature of individual decisionmaking.