Families as Roommates: Changes in U.S. Household Size from 1850 to 2000

Salcedo Alejandrina, Schoellman Todd and Michele Tertilt

No 2010-07, Working Papers from Banco de México

Abstract: The size of the average American household has fallen dramatically -from six in 1850 to three in 2000. To explain this decline we model households as collections of roommates who share the costs of household public goods. If private goods are more income elastic than public goods, as we document in the paper, an increase in income endogenously leads to smaller households. We calibrate the model to match data from 2000. Changing incomes to their 1850 levels, we find that our mechanism can explain 37 percent of the observed reduction in the number of adults per household and 16 percent of the reduction in the number of children.

JEL-codes: D10 E10 J11 N30 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-soc
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Families as roommates: Changes in U.S. household size from 1850 to 2000 (2012)
Working Paper: Families as Roommates: Changes in U.S. Household Size from 1850 to 2000 (2009)
Working Paper: Families as Roommates: Changes in U.S. Household Size from 1850 to 2000 (2009)
Working Paper: Families as Roommates: Changes in U.S. Household Size from 1850 to 2000 (2009)
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