Is It Money or Brains? The Determinants of Intra-Family Decision Power

Graziella Bertocchi (), Marianna Brunetti and Costanza Torricelli

No 6648, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We empirically study the determinants of intra-household decision power with respect to economic and financial choices using a suitable direct measure provided in the 1989-2010 Bank of Italy Survey of Household Income and Wealth. Focusing on a sample of couples, we evaluate the effect of each spouse's characteristics, household characteristics, and background variables. We find that the probability that the wife is in charge is affected by household characteristics such as family size and total income and wealth, but more importantly that it increases with the difference between hers and her husband's characteristics in terms of age, education, and income. The main conclusion is that decision-making power over family economics is not only determined by strictly economic differences, as suggested by previous studies, but also by differences in human capital and experience. Finally, exploiting the time dimension of our dataset, we show that this pattern is increasing over time.

Keywords: family economics; intra-household decision power; gender differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 E21 G11 J12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2012-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-hme and nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (43)

Published - revised version published as 'Who Holds the Purse Strings within the Household? The Determinants of Intra-family Decision Making' in: Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2014, 101, 65-86

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Related works:
Working Paper: Is it money or brains? The determinants of intra-family decision power (2012)
Working Paper: Is it money or brains? The determinants of intra-family decision power (2012)
Working Paper: Is it money or brains? The determinants of intra-family decision power (2012)
Working Paper: Is it money or brains? The determinants of intra-family decision power (2012)
Working Paper: Is it money or brains? The determinants of intra-family decision power (2012)
Working Paper: Is it money or brains? The determinants of intra-family decision power (2012)
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