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

Geoffrey Dunbar, Arthur Lewbel and Krishna Pendakur

American Economic Review, 2013, vol. 103, issue 1, 438-71

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)

JEL-codes: I31 I32 J12 J13 O12 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.103.1.438
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (195)

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Working Paper: Children's Resources in Collective Households: Identification, Estimation and an Application to Child Poverty in Malawi (2012)
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