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
Additional contact information
Ping Qin: University of Gothenburg

No 5127, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Many economic decisions are made jointly within households. This raises the question about spouses' relative influence on joint decisions and the determinants of relative influence. Using a controlled experiment (on inter-temporal choice), we let each spouse first make individual decisions and then make joint decisions with the other spouse. We use a random parameter probit model to measure the relative influence of spouses on joint decisions. In general, husbands have a stronger influence than wives. However, in richer households and when the wife is older than the husband, we find a significantly stronger influence of the wife on joint decisions.

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)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2010-08
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published - revised version published in: Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2012, 84 (2), 525-536

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp5127.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Household decision making in rural China: Using experiments to estimate the influences of spouses (2012)
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)
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:iza:izadps:dp5127

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().