Bargaining or efficiency within the household? The case of Italy

Carmen Aina (), Fernanda Mazzotta and Lavinia Parisi ()

No 130, CELPE Discussion Papers from CELPE - CEnter for Labor and Political Economics, University of Salerno, Italy

Abstract: Two aspects play a role in the household decision-making, the efficiency and the bargaining power’s argument. The crucial difference between the two approaches is the expected influence of personal and partners’ wage. To investigate which of the two models hold, in the Italian context, we estimate an ordered probit model for five aspects of household decision-making. We use the Italian questionnaire of Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (It-Silc) 2010 as it provides a module on intra-household sharing of resources. Results show that in strategic control decisions, where the power argument should dominate the efficiency approach (i.e. decisions on durable goods, savings and other important decisions) the spouse/partner with higher wage is the household decision maker. For decision regarding executive management (i.e. decision on everyday shopping), the efficiency argument holds.

Keywords: Financial management; Intra-household bargaining; Household production; Gender differences; Intra-household decision power; Family economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 E21 G11 J12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2014-12-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-eur and nep-mac
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