Household decision making in rural China: Using experiments to estimate the influences of spouses

Fredrik Carlsson, Haoran He, Peter Martinsson, Ping Qin and Matthias Sutter

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2012, vol. 84, issue 2, 525-536

Abstract: Many economic decisions are made jointly within households. Running an experiment on intertemporal choice, we investigate the relative influence of spouses on joint household decisions. We let each spouse first decide individually and then jointly with the other spouse. We propose the use of a random parameter probit model to measure the relative influence of spouses on joint decisions. We find that joint choices are in between husbands’ and wives’ choices with respect to impatience, indicating that both spouses have an influence on joint decisions. However, we estimate that in 99% of households husbands have a stronger influence than wives.

Keywords: Household decision making; Spouses; Relative influence; Random parameter model; Field experiment; Time preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 C92 C93 D10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (66)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Household Decision Making in Rural China: Using Experiments to Estimate the Influences of Spouses (2010)
Working Paper: Household Decision Making in Rural China: Using Experiments to Estimate the Influences of Spouses (2010)
Working Paper: Household Decision Making in Rural China: Using Experiments to Estimate the Influences of Spouses (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:84:y:2012:i:2:p:525-536

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2012.08.010

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