Collective Models of Family Behaviour: Implications for Economic Policy

Shelley Phipps and Peter Burton

Canadian Public Policy, 1996, vol. 22, issue 2, 129-143

Abstract: Many economists have until fairly recently treated the family as a "black box" -- analysing the behaviour of "the family" rather than of the individuals within the family. In this paper, we outline the new "collective" approach to modelling family behaviour which makes explicit the fact that families consist of individuals with different tastes and different experiences who may sometimes be in conflict with one another. This paper argues that new developments in the economics of the family are of interest to policy-makers because many policy conclusions are sensitive to the model of the family which is adopted. We illustrate the importance of the collective approach to decisions about child-support guidelines, automatic withholding of support payments, child benefits, cash versus kind transfers, and individual versus family taxation.

Date: 1996
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