Distributional effects in household models: Separate spheres and income pooling

Arbeitspapier

We derive distributional e¤ects for a non-cooperative alternative to the unitary model of household behaviour. We consider the Nash equilibria of a voluntary contributions to public goods game. Our main result is that, in general, the two partners either choose to contribute to di¤erent public goods or they contribute to at most one common good. The former case corresponds to the separate spheres case of Lundberg and Pollak (1993). The second outcome yields (local) income pooling. A household will be in di¤erent regimes depending on the distribution of income within the household. Any bargaining model with this non-cooperative case as a breakdown point will inherit the local income pooling. We conclude that targeting bene.ts such as child bene.ts to one household member may not always have an e¤ect on outcomes.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IFS Working Papers ; No. 07/03

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Household Behavior: General ; Cooperative Games ; Noncooperative Games
• Subject: Nash equilibrium ; Nash bargaining ; collective models ; intra-household allocation ; local income pooling ; separate spheres ; Haushaltsökonomik ; Öffentliches Gut ; Nash-Gleichgewicht ; Kooperatives Spiel ; Nichtkooperatives Spiel ; Spieltheorie

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Browning, Martin ; Chiappori, Pierre Andre ; Lechene, Valérie
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)
• (where): London
• (when): 2006

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.1920/wp.ifs.2007.0703
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/71573
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:47 AM CET