Do Couples Pool Their Income?

Konferenzbeitrag

Whether couples pool their resources and behave like a unit or spend their income individually is crucial for social and tax policy. In this paper, I provide a test of the income pooling hypothesis using administrative cross-sectional survey data on expenditures and individual incomes of couple households in Germany. The test is performed within the Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS) framework, which allows for an endogenous expenditure budget and endogenous individual income contribution shares in an instrumental variables approach. Although the hypothesis is broadly rejected, there are significant differences regarding the marital status, the presence of at least one child in the household and whether the household is located in a former West or East German federal state. Married couples and couples with children are closer to the acceptance of the hypothesis than unmarried couples without children.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Beiträge zur Jahrestagung des Vereins für Socialpolitik 2019: 30 Jahre Mauerfall - Demokratie und Marktwirtschaft - Session: Consumption and Household Economics ; No. A20-V1

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis ; Household Production and Intrahousehold Allocation ; Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies; includes inheritance and gift taxes ; Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure; Domestic Abuse
• Subject: Income Pooling ; Intra-Household Allocation ; Consumer Demand ; QUAIDS

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Beznoska, Martin
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): ZBW - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft
• (where): Kiel, Hamburg
• (when): 2019

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/203490
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET