[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hka/wpaper/2022-010.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Spousal Bargaining Power and Consumption of Married Couples in the US: Evidence from Scanner Data

Author

Listed:
  • So Yoon Ahn

    (University of Illinois at Chicago)

  • Yu Kyung Koh
Abstract
This paper studies how spousal bargaining power affects consumption patterns of married households in the US, using a detailed barcode-level dataset. We use two distribution factors as proxies for spousal bargaining power: (1) spouses' relative education and (2) spouses' relative potential wage, which is our preferred distribution factor. As an arguably exogenous measure of bargaining power, our relative potential wage is constructed as a Bartik style measure of female-to-male wage ratio, exploiting county-level variations in heterogeneous exposure to different industries and state-wide wage growth. We find that the expenditure shares on women's beauty goods increase and the expenditure shares on alcohol decrease significantly both when relative education of wife increases and when relative potential wages of wives increase. These results are consistent with household bargaining explanations. For couples with children, improved women's household bargaining position is associated with higher budget share on books, stationary, and school supplies, which are potentially related to investment in children. For singles, we do not find statistically meaningful effects of relative potential wage on any of their consumption outcomes, which strengthens the interpretation that the relative wage only affects couples' consumption decisions.

Suggested Citation

  • So Yoon Ahn & Yu Kyung Koh, 2022. "Spousal Bargaining Power and Consumption of Married Couples in the US: Evidence from Scanner Data," Working Papers 2022-010, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    • Handle: RePEc:hka:wpaper:2022-010
    Note: FI
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://humcap.uchicago.edu/RePEc/hka/wpaper/Ahn_Koh_2022_spousal-bargaining-power-consumption.pdf
    File Function: First version, March 1, 2022
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Esther Duflo, 2003. "Grandmothers and Granddaughters: Old-Age Pensions and Intrahousehold Allocation in South Africa," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 17(1), pages 1-25, June.
    2. Simone Schaner, 2017. "The Cost of Convenience?: Transaction Costs, Bargaining Power, and Savings Account Use in Kenya," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 52(4), pages 919-945.
    3. Martin Browning & Pierre-André Chiappori & Arthur Lewbel, 2013. "Estimating Consumption Economies of Scale, Adult Equivalence Scales, and Household Bargaining Power," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(4), pages 1267-1303.
    4. Duncan Thomas, 1990. "Intra-Household Resource Allocation: An Inferential Approach," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 25(4), pages 635-664.
    5. Browning, Martin & Francois Bourguignon & Pierre-Andre Chiappori & Valerie Lechene, 1994. "Income and Outcomes: A Structural Model of Intrahousehold Allocation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(6), pages 1067-1096, December.
    6. Chernozhukov, Victor & Hansen, Christian, 2008. "The reduced form: A simple approach to inference with weak instruments," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 68-71, July.
    7. Melissa S. Kearney & Riley Wilson, 2018. "Male Earnings, Marriageable Men, and Nonmarital Fertility: Evidence from the Fracking Boom," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(4), pages 678-690, October.
    8. Marianne Bertrand & Emir Kamenica & Jessica Pan, 2015. "Gender Identity and Relative Income within Households," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(2), pages 571-614.
    9. Alex Armand & Orazio Attanasio & Pedro Carneiro & Valérie Lechene, 2020. "The Effect of Gender-Targeted Conditional Cash Transfers on Household Expenditures: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(631), pages 1875-1897.
    10. Timothy J. Bartik, 1991. "Who Benefits from State and Local Economic Development Policies?," Books from Upjohn Press, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, number wbsle.
    11. Lundberg, Shelly & Pollak, Robert A, 1993. "Separate Spheres Bargaining and the Marriage Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(6), pages 988-1010, December.
    12. Bilge Erten & Pinar Keskin, 2024. "Trade-offs? The Impact of WTO Accession on Intimate Partner Violence in Cambodia," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 106(2), pages 322-333, March.
    13. Agnes R. Quisumbing & John A. Maluccio, 2003. "Resources at Marriage and Intrahousehold Allocation: Evidence from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and South Africa," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 65(3), pages 283-327, July.
    14. David Autor & David Dorn & Gordon Hanson, 2019. "When Work Disappears: Manufacturing Decline and the Falling Marriage Market Value of Young Men," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 161-178, September.
    15. Orazio P. Attanasio & Valérie Lechene, 2014. "Efficient Responses to Targeted Cash Transfers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(1), pages 178-222.
    16. Anna Aizer, 2010. "The Gender Wage Gap and Domestic Violence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1847-1859, September.
    17. Geoffrey R. Dunbar & Arthur Lewbel & Krishna Pendakur, 2013. "Children's Resources in Collective Households: Identification, Estimation, and an Application to Child Poverty in Malawi," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(1), pages 438-471, February.
    18. Browning,Martin & Chiappori,Pierre-André & Weiss,Yoram, 2014. "Economics of the Family," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521795395, September.
    19. Hoddinott, John & Haddad, Lawrence, 1995. "Does Female Income Share Influence Household Expenditures? Evidence from Cote d'Ivoire," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 57(1), pages 77-96, February.
    20. Jennifer Ward-Batts, 2008. "Out of the Wallet and into the Purse: Using Micro Data to Test Income Pooling," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(2), pages 325-351.
    21. Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham & Isaac Sorkin & Henry Swift, 2020. "Bartik Instruments: What, When, Why, and How," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(8), pages 2586-2624, August.
    22. Lewbel, Arthur & Pendakur, Krishna, 2008. "Estimation of collective household models with Engel curves," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 350-358, December.
    23. Shelley A. Phipps & Peter S. Burton, 1998. "What’s Mine is Yours? The Influence of Male and Female Incomes on Patterns of Household Expenditure," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 65(260), pages 599-613, November.
    24. Pierre-Andre Chiappori & Bernard Fortin & Guy Lacroix, 2002. "Marriage Market, Divorce Legislation, and Household Labor Supply," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(1), pages 37-72, February.
    25. Shelly J. Lundberg & Robert A. Pollak & Terence J. Wales, 1997. "Do Husbands and Wives Pool Their Resources? Evidence from the United Kingdom Child Benefit," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 32(3), pages 463-480.
    26. Na'ama Shenhav, 2021. "Lowering Standards to Wed? Spouse Quality, Marriage, and Labor Market Responses to the Gender Wage Gap," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(2), pages 265-279, May.
    27. Rossella Calvi, 2020. "Why Are Older Women Missing in India? The Age Profile of Bargaining Power and Poverty," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(7), pages 2453-2501.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. So Yoon Ahn & Meiqing Ren, 2022. "Gender Wage Gap, Bargaining Power, and Charitable Giving of Households," Working Papers 2022-033, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    2. Zhao, Chuanmin & Qu, Xi, 2024. "Place-based policies, rural employment, and intra-household resources allocation: Evidence from China’s economic zones," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    3. Lin, Xirong, 2023. "Food demand and cash transfers: A collective household approach with Homescan data," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 233-259.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Donni, Olivier & Molina, José Alberto, 2018. "Household Collective Models: Three Decades of Theoretical Contributions and Empirical Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 11915, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. So Yoon Ahn & Meiqing Ren, 2022. "Gender Wage Gap, Bargaining Power, and Charitable Giving of Households," Working Papers 2022-033, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    3. Klein, Matthew J. & Barham, Bradford L., 2018. "Point Estimates of Household Bargaining Power Using Outside Options," Staff Paper Series 590, University of Wisconsin, Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    4. Laurens CHERCHYE & Thomas DEMUYNCK & Bram DE ROCK, 2010. "Noncooperative household consumption with caring," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven ces10.34, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
    5. Pierre André Chiappori & José Ignacio Gimenez Nadal & José Alberto Molina & Alexandros Theloudis & Jorge Velilla, 2020. "Intrahousehold Commitment and Intertemporal Labor Supply," LISER Working Paper Series 2020-11, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    6. Echeverría, Lucía, 2020. "Modelos colectivos de consumo y distribución intra-hogar. Teoría y aplicaciones," Nülan. Deposited Documents 3832, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales, Centro de Documentación.
    7. Chiappori, Pierre-André & Molina, José Alberto & Gimenez-Nadal, José Ignacio & Velilla, Jorge, 2019. "Intertemporal Labor Supply and Intra-Household Commitment," IZA Discussion Papers 12353, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Almås, Ingvild & Ringdal, Charlotte & Hoem Sjursen, Ingrid, 2021. "Understanding inequality within households," GLO Discussion Paper Series 961, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    9. Denni Tommasi, 2015. "How Cash Transfers Improve Child Development," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2015-19, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    10. Tommasi, Denni, 2019. "Control of resources, bargaining power and the demand of food: Evidence from PROGRESA," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 265-286.
    11. Ibarra, Helena & Velilla, Jorge, 2021. "Oferta laboral familiar y negociación intrafamiliar en España: Un test del modelo colectivo [Household labor supply and intrahousehold bargaining: An empirical test of the collective model]," MPRA Paper 108080, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Lin, Xirong, 2023. "Food demand and cash transfers: A collective household approach with Homescan data," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 233-259.
    13. Matthias Doepke & Michèle Tertilt, 2019. "Does female empowerment promote economic development?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 309-343, December.
    14. Laurens Cherchye & Thomas Demuynck & Bram De Rock, 2011. "Revealed Preference Analysis of Non‐Cooperative Household Consumption," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(555), pages 1073-1096, September.
    15. Casco José L., 2022. "Intra-household Resource Shares under Poverty Transfers: Evidence from Ecuador," Working Papers 2022-03, Banco de México.
    16. José L. Casco, 2024. "Intra-household resource shares under poverty transfers: evidence from Ecuador," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 1243-1274, September.
    17. José Alberto Molina & Jorge Velilla & Helena Ibarra, 2023. "Intrahousehold Bargaining Power in Spain: An Empirical Test of the Collective Model," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 84-97, March.
    18. Pierre-André Chiappori & José Alberto Molina, 2019. "The intra-spousal balance of power within the family: cross-cultural evidence," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 983, Boston College Department of Economics.
    19. Denni Tommasi, 2016. "Household Responses to cash Transfers," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2016-20, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    20. Olivier Bargain & Guy Lacroix & Luca Tiberti, 2021. "Intrahousehold Resource Allocation and Individual Poverty: Assessing Collective Model Predictions against Direct Evidence on Sharing," Working Papers hal-03432676, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    relative education; wage ratio; children;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hka:wpaper:2022-010. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jennifer Pachon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mfichus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.