IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cpp/issued/v22y1996i2p129-143.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Collective Models of Family Behaviour: Implications for Economic Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Shelley A. Phipps
  • Peter S. Burton

Abstract

Many economists have until fairly recently treated the family as a "black box" -- analysing the behaviour of "the family" rather than of the individuals within the family. In this paper, we outline the new "collective" approach to modelling family behaviour which makes explicit the fact that families consist of individuals with different tastes and different experiences who may sometimes be in conflict with one another. This paper argues that new developments in the economics of the family are of interest to policy-makers because many policy conclusions are sensitive to the model of the family which is adopted. We illustrate the importance of the collective approach to decisions about child-support guidelines, automatic withholding of support payments, child benefits, cash versus kind transfers, and individual versus family taxation.

Suggested Citation

  • Shelley A. Phipps & Peter S. Burton, 1996. "Collective Models of Family Behaviour: Implications for Economic Policy," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 22(2), pages 129-143, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpp:issued:v:22:y:1996:i:2:p:129-143
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0317-0861%28199606%2922%3A2%3C129%3ACMOFBI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U
    Download Restriction: only available to JSTOR subscribers
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Marjorie B. McElroy, 1990. "The Empirical Content of Nash-Bargained Household Behavior," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 25(4), pages 559-583.
    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. Chiappori, Pierre-Andre, 1988. "Rational Household Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(1), pages 63-90, January.
    6. 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.
    7. Kooreman, Peter & Kapteyn, Arie, 1987. "A Disaggregated Analysis of the Allocation of Time within the Household," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(2), pages 223-249, April.
    8. Paul A. Samuelson, 1956. "Social Indifference Curves," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 70(1), pages 1-22.
    9. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "A Theory of Marriage," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital, pages 299-351, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Barbara R. Bergmann, 1996. "Becker’s Theory of the Family: Preposterous Conclusions," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(2), pages 9-12, March.
    11. Lundberg, S.J. & Pollak, R.A. & Wales, T.J., 1994. "Do Husbands and Wives Pool Their Resources? Evidence from U.K. Child Benefit," Working Papers 94-6, University of Washington, Department of Economics.
    12. Shelley A. Phipps & Peter S. Burton, 1995. "Sharing within Families: Implications for the Measurement of Poverty among Individuals in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 28(1), pages 177-204, February.
    13. repec:ucp:bknber:9780226740867 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Woolley, Frances R, 1993. "The Feminist Challenge to Neoclassical Economics," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 17(4), pages 485-500, December.
    15. Folbre, Nancy, 1986. "Cleaning house : New perspectives on Households and Economic Development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 5-40, June.
    16. Haddad, Lawrence & Hoddinott, John, 1994. "Women's income and boy-girl anthropometric status in the Cote d'Ivoire," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 543-553, April.
    17. Janet Currie, 1994. "Welfare and the Well-Being of Children: The Relative Effectiveness of Cash and In-Kind Transfers," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 8, pages 1-44, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Phipps, Shelley, 1990. "Quantity-Constrainted Household Responses to UI Reform," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(399), pages 124-140, March.
    19. Fortin, B. & Lacroix, G., 1993. "A Test of the Neoclassical and Collective Models of Household Labour Supply," Papers 9335, Laval - Recherche en Politique Economique.
    20. T. Paul Schultz, 1990. "Testing the Neoclassical Model of Family Labor Supply and Fertility," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 25(4), pages 599-634.
    21. Tauchen, Helen V & Witte, Ann Dryden & Long, Sharon K, 1991. "Domestic Violence: A Nonrandom Affair," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 32(2), pages 491-511, May.
    22. Hausman, Jerry & Ruud, Paul, 1984. "Family Labor Supply with Taxes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(2), pages 242-248, May.
    23. Bergstrom, Theodore C, 1989. "A Fresh Look at the Rotten Kid Theorem--and Other Household Mysteries," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(5), pages 1138-1159, October.
    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. 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. Kristian Orsini & Amadéo Spadaro, 2006. "Strategic weight within couples: a microsimulation approach," Working Papers halshs-00590395, HAL.
    3. Frederic Vermeulen, 2002. "Collective Household Models: Principles and Main Results," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(4), pages 533-564, September.
    4. Urvashi Dhawan Biswal, 1999. "Testing the Family "Common Preference" Model for Immigrant and Non-Immigrant Women's Labour Supply," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 25(s1), pages 95-114, November.
    5. Chiuri, Maria Concetta, 2000. "Individual decisions and household demand for consumption and leisure," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 277-324, September.
    6. Pierre Lefebvre & Philip Merrigan, 1998. "Family Background, Family Income, Maternal Work and Child Development," Cahiers de recherche CREFE / CREFE Working Papers 78, CREFE, Université du Québec à Montréal.
    7. Omar Aziz & Norman Gemmell & Athene Laws, 2016. "Income and Fiscal Incidence by Age and Gender: Some Evidence from New Zealand," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 62(3), pages 534-558, September.
    8. Aziz, Omar & Gemmell, Norman & Laws, Athene, 2013. "The Distribution of Income and Fiscal Incidence by Age and Gender: Some Evidence from New Zealand," Working Paper Series 18785, Victoria University of Wellington, Chair in Public Finance.
    9. Frederik Booysen & Sevias Guvuriro, 2018. "Family-type Public Goods and Intra-Household Decision-Making by Co-Resident South African Couples," Working Papers 735, Economic Research Southern Africa.

    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. Shelley Phipps, "undated". "Economics and Well-Being of Canadian Children," Canadian International Labour Network Working Papers 35, McMaster University.
    2. Chiappori, Pierre-André & Donni, Olivier, 2009. "Non-unitary Models of Household Behavior: A Survey of the Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 4603, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Xu, Zeyu, 2007. "A survey on intra-household models and evidence," MPRA Paper 3763, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Rubalcava, L. & Thomas, D., 2000. "Family Bargaining and Welfare," Papers 00-10, RAND - Labor and Population Program.
    5. Pareena G. Lawrence & Marakah Mancini, 2008. "La toma de decisiones de los hogares en Venezuela," Revista de Economía Institucional, Universidad Externado de Colombia - Facultad de Economía, vol. 10(18), pages 213-239, January-J.
    6. Olivier Bargain & Miriam Beblo & Denis Beninger & Richard Blundell & Raquel Carrasco & Maria-Concetta Chiuri & François Laisney & Valérie Lechene & Nicolas Moreau & Michal Myck & Javier Ruiz-Castillo , 2006. "Does the Representation of Household Behavior Matter for Welfare Analysis of Tax-benefit Policies? An Introduction," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 99-111, June.
    7. Doss, Cheryl R., 1996. "Testing among models of intrahousehold resource allocation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 24(10), pages 1597-1609, October.
    8. Smith, V. Kerry & Van Houtven, George, 1998. "Non-Market Valuation and the Household," RFF Working Paper Series dp-98-31, Resources for the Future.
    9. Robert Pollak, 2003. "Gary Becker's Contributions to Family and Household Economics," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 111-141, January.
    10. Shelly Lundberg & Robert A. Pollak, 1996. "Bargaining and Distribution in Marriage," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 139-158, Fall.
    11. Dauphin, Anyck & El Lahga, Abdel-Rahmen & Fortin, Bernard & Lacroix, Guy, 2006. "Choix de consommation des ménages en présence de plusieurs décideurs," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 82(1), pages 87-118, mars-juin.
    12. Alberto Alesina & Andrea Ichino & Loukas Karabarbounis, 2011. "Gender-Based Taxation and the Division of Family Chores," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 1-40, May.
    13. André de Palma & Nathalie Picard & Ignacio Inoa, 2014. "Discrete choice decision-making with multiple decision-makers within the household," Chapters, in: Stephane Hess & Andrew Daly (ed.), Handbook of Choice Modelling, chapter 16, pages 363-382, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Diana Mok, 2007. "Do Two-earner Households Base Their Choice of Residential Location on Both Incomes?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 44(4), pages 723-750, April.
    15. James Andreoni & Eleanor Brown & Isaac Rischall, 2003. "Charitable Giving by Married Couples Who Decides and Why Does it Matter?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 38(1).
    16. Djebbari, Habiba, 2005. "The Impact on Nutrition of the Intrahousehold Distribution of Power," IZA Discussion Papers 1701, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Lee, Jungmin, 2004. "Observable and Unobservable Household Sharing Rules: Evidence from Young Couples' Pocket Money," IZA Discussion Papers 1250, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Inés Berniell & Dolores de la Mata & Matilde Pinto Machado, 2020. "The Impact of a Permanent Income Shock on the Situation of Women in the Household: The Case of a Pension Reform in Argentina," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 68(4), pages 1295-1343.
    19. Gillian Hewitson, 2001. "A Survey of Feminist Economics," Working Papers 2001.01, School of Economics, La Trobe University.
    20. Chris Klaveren & Bernard Praag & Henriette Maassen van den Brink, 2008. "A public good version of the collective household model: an empirical approach with an application to British household data," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 6(2), pages 169-191, June.

    More about this item

    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:cpp:issued:v:22:y:1996:i:2:p:129-143. 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: Iver Chong (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.utpjournals.press/loi/cpp .

    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.