Hidden income and its impact on expenditure patterns in Uganda

Cansın Arslan, Daniel Gregg and Randy Stringer

World Development, 2024, vol. 183, issue C

Abstract: This study presents quantitative insights into the willingness of women and men to hide income from their spouse, how socio-demographic and psycho-social factors correlate to the willingness to hide income, and how hiding that income influences expenditure patterns. Using data from 422 households in rural Uganda and employing an established revealed preference approach, the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) mechanism, we show that both women and men seek to hide income from their spouse at substantial potential cost. We report an average willingness to pay (WTP) of 49% of the endowment offered, with 99% of the participants stating a positive WTP for hidden income. The correlates with demand for hidden income differ in terms of size and significance across genders and include perceived marriage quality, self-control, savings group membership, and empowerment over purchasing decisions. Results show that women who received income in private have a higher public to private spending ratio and higher transfers to their social network. Our study contributes to the literature on intra-household resource allocation in developing countries by studying the demand for hidden income between co-habiting spouses, correlates with the demand for hidden income, and the link between hidden income and subsequent spending patterns in rural Uganda.

Keywords: Gender; Intra-household; Efficiency; Hidden income; Asymmetric information; BDM mechanism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 D82 J12 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X24002067
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:183:y:2024:i:c:s0305750x24002067

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106736

Access Statistics for this article

World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes

More articles in World Development from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().