IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cca/wchild/56.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Collective Household Welfare and Intra-household Inequality

Author

Listed:
  • Jean-Paul Chavas
  • Martina Menon
  • Elisa Pagani
  • Federico Perali

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between the individual and household indirect utility functions in the context of a collective household model. Our analysis produces new results that explain how the rule governing the distribution of resources among household members is related to the measurement of household welfare and intra-household inequality. We show that in a collective model of private consumption, income shares are equal to the product of two weights: the Pareto weight and a distribution weight reflecting income effects across individuals. For a weighted Bergsonian representation of household utility and general assumptions about individual preferences, we derive the associated household welfare functions and intra-household inequality measures belonging to a family of entropy indexes. We illustrate our findings with an empirical application that estimates a collective demand system to recover associated individual and household welfare functions along with the measures of intra-household inequality. This is the first application that estimates the Pareto weight and examines its role within a measure of income dispersion among household members.

Suggested Citation

  • Jean-Paul Chavas & Martina Menon & Elisa Pagani & Federico Perali, 2017. "Collective Household Welfare and Intra-household Inequality," CHILD Working Papers Series 56 JEL Classification: D1, Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic Economics (CHILD) - CCA.
    • Handle: RePEc:cca:wchild:56
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.child.carloalberto.org/images/documenti/child56_2017.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Laurens Cherchye & Bram De Rock & Frederic Vermeulen, 2007. "The Collective Model of Household Consumption: A Nonparametric Characterization," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(2), pages 553-574, March.
    2. Federico Perali & Martina Menon, 2009. "Econometric Identification of the Cost of Maintaining a Child," Working Papers 63/2009, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    3. Martina Menon & Federico Perali, 2012. "The Sharing Rule: Where Is It?," Working Papers 16/2012, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    4. Carlos Arias & Vincenzo Atella & Raffaella Castagnini & Federico Perali, 2003. "Estimation of the Sharing Rule between Adults and Children and Related Equivalence Scales within a Collective Consumption Framework," CHILD Working Papers wp07_03, CHILD - Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic economics - ITALY.
    5. Blundell, Richard & Robin, Jean Marc, 1999. "Estimation in Large and Disaggregated Demand Systems: An Estimator for Conditionally Linear Systems," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(3), pages 209-232, May-June.
    6. 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.
    7. Lewbel, Arthur, 1989. "A Demand System Rank Theorem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(3), pages 701-705, May.
    8. M. Browning & P. A. Chiappori, 1998. "Efficient Intra-Household Allocations: A General Characterization and Empirical Tests," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(6), pages 1241-1278, November.
    9. Christensen, Laurits R & Jorgenson, Dale W & Lau, Lawrence J, 1975. "Transcendental Logarithmic Utility Functions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(3), pages 367-383, June.
    10. Menon, Martina & Pendakur, Krishna & Perali, Federico, 2012. "On the expenditure-dependence of children’s resource shares," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 739-742.
    11. Layard, R. & Mayraz, G. & Nickell, S., 2008. "The marginal utility of income," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(8-9), pages 1846-1857, August.
    12. Apps, Patricia F. & Rees, Ray, 1988. "Taxation and the household," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 355-369, April.
    13. Apps,Patricia & Rees,Ray, 2009. "Public Economics and the Household," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521716284, October.
    14. Martina Menon & Federico Perali & Luca Piccoli, 2008. "The passive drinking effect: Evidence from Italy," Working Papers halshs-00586686, HAL.
    15. Olivier Bargain & Olivier Donni, 2012. "Targeting and child poverty," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 39(4), pages 783-808, October.
    16. Pierre‐André Chiappori & Arthur Lewbel, 2015. "Gary Becker's A Theory of the Allocation of Time," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(583), pages 410-442, March.
    17. Jean-Marc Robin, 1999. "[Econometrics of systems of demand] [Econométrie des systèmes de demande]," Post-Print hal-02688894, HAL.
    18. Howe, Howard & Pollak, Robert A & Wales, Terence J, 1979. "Theory and Time Series Estimation of the Quadratic Expenditure System," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(5), pages 1231-1247, September.
    19. 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.
    20. Lazear, Edward P & Michael, Robert T, 1986. "Estimating the Personal Distribution of Income with Adjustment for Within-Family Variation," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(3), pages 216-239, July.
    21. Lewbel, Arthur, 1990. "Full Rank Demand Systems," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 31(2), pages 289-300, May.
    22. Deaton,Angus & Muellbauer,John, 1980. "Economics and Consumer Behavior," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521296762, October.
    23. Browning,Martin & Chiappori,Pierre-André & Weiss,Yoram, 2014. "Economics of the Family," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521795395, September.
    24. James Banks & Richard Blundell & Arthur Lewbel, 1997. "Quadratic Engel Curves And Consumer Demand," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(4), pages 527-539, November.
    25. Chiappori, Pierre-Andre, 1988. "Rational Household Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(1), pages 63-90, January.
    26. Martina Menon & Federico Perali & Nicola Tommasi, 2017. "Estimation of unit values in household expenditure surveys without quantity information," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 17(1), pages 222-239, March.
    27. Arthur Lewbel, 1985. "A Unified Approach to Incorporating Demographic or Other Effects into Demand Systems," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 52(1), pages 1-18.
    28. Kelvin J. Lancaster, 1966. "A New Approach to Consumer Theory," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 74(2), pages 132-132.
    29. Martina Menon & Elisa Pagani & Federico Perali, 2012. "A Characterization of Collective Individual Expenditure Functions," Working Papers 20/2012, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    30. Martina Menon & Federico Perali & Luca Piccoli, 2012. "The Passive Drinking Effect: A Collective Demand Application," Working Papers 05/2012, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    31. Chiappori, Pierre-Andre, 1992. "Collective Labor Supply and Welfare," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(3), pages 437-467, June.
    32. Chavas, Jean-Paul, 1989. "How restrictive is the Prais-Houthakker model?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(7), pages 1363-1372, September.
    33. Lewbel, Arthur, 1991. "The Rank of Demand Systems: Theory and Nonparametric Estimation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(3), pages 711-730, May.
    34. Martina Menon & Federico Perali & Marcella Veronesi, 2014. "Recovering Individual Preferences for Non-Market Goods: A Collective Travel-Cost Model," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 96(2), pages 438-457.
    35. Arthur Lewbel, 1989. "Identification and Estimation of Equivalence Scales under Weak Separability," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 56(2), pages 311-316.
    36. Martina Menon & Federico Perali & Luca Piccoli, 2018. "Collective consumption: an application to the passive drinking effect," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 143-169, March.
    37. Hoderlein, Stefan & Mihaleva, Sonya, 2008. "Increasing the price variation in a repeated cross section," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 316-325, December.
    38. Lewbel, Arthur, 1989. "Nesting the AIDS and Translog Demand System," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 30(2), pages 349-356, May.
    39. Lewbel, Arthur, 1995. "Utility Functions and Global Regularity of Fractional Demand Systems," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 36(4), pages 943-961, November.
    40. Elisa Pagani, 2013. "Tricks for maximizing collective utility functions," Working Papers 02/2013, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    41. John Muellbauer, 1975. "Aggregation, Income Distribution and Consumer Demand," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 42(4), pages 525-543.
    42. Deaton, Angus S & Muellbauer, John, 1980. "An Almost Ideal Demand System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 312-326, June.
    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. Jean-Paul Chavas & Eleonora Matteazzi & Martina Menon & Federico Perali, 2021. "Bargaining in the Family," CHILD Working Papers Series 88 JEL Classification: D1, Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic Economics (CHILD) - CCA.
    3. Louis Eeckhoudt & Elisa Pagani & Eugenio Peluso, 2023. "Multidimensional risk aversion: the cardinal sin," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 320(1), pages 15-31, January.
    4. 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.
    5. Echeverría, Lucía & Menon, Martina & Perali, Federico & Berges, Miriam, 2019. "Intra-household inequality and child welfare in Argentina," Nülan. Deposited Documents 3051, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales, Centro de Documentación.
    6. Piera Mazzoleni & Elisa Pagani & Federico Perali, 2019. "The curvature properties of social welfare functions," Working Papers 493, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    7. Jean-Paul Chavas & Eleonora Matteazzi & Martina Menon & Federico Perali, 2022. "(In)Efficient Bargaining in the Family," Working Papers 2, SITES.
    8. Eleftherios Giovanis & Oznur Ozdamar, 2019. "A Collective Household Labour Supply Model with Disability: Evidence from Iraq," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 209-225, June.
    9. Getachew Yirga Belete & Martina Menon & Federico Perali, 2022. "Children’s Resources and Poverty: A Collective Consumption Evidence from Ethiopia," Working Papers 1, SITES.
    10. Eleftherios Giovanis & Martina Menon & Federico Perali, 2023. "Disability specific equivalence scales: a case–control approach applied to the cost of acquired brain injuries," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 643-672, December.

    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. 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.
    2. Martina Menon & Federico Perali & Luca Piccoli, 2018. "Collective consumption: an application to the passive drinking effect," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 143-169, March.
    3. Echeverría, Lucía & Menon, Martina & Perali, Federico & Berges, Miriam, 2019. "Intra-household inequality and child welfare in Argentina," Nülan. Deposited Documents 3051, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales, Centro de Documentación.
    4. Lucia MANGIAVACCHI & Federico PERALI & Luca Piccoli, 2018. "Intrahousehold Distribution in Migrant-Sending Families," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 84(1), pages 107-148, March.
    5. Antonella Caiumi & Federico Perali, 2015. "Who bears the full cost of children? Evidence from a collective demand system," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 33-64, August.
    6. Martina Menon & Federico Perali, 2012. "The Sharing Rule: Where Is It?," Working Papers 16/2012, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    7. 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).
    8. 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.
    9. Denni Tommasi & Alexander Wolf, 2016. "Overcoming Weak Identification in the Estimation of Household Resource Shares," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2016-12, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    10. Arthur Lewbel & Krishna Pendakur, 2024. "Estimating a model of inefficient cooperation and consumption in collective households," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 865-907, September.
    11. LaFrance, Jeffrey T., 2008. "The structure of US food demand," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 336-349, December.
    12. Olivier Bargain, 2022. "Income Sources, Intra-Household Allocation And Individual Poverty," Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Working Paper Series 121, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    13. Denni Tommasi, 2016. "Household Responses to cash Transfers," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2016-20, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    14. 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.
    15. Cherchye, Laurens & Cosaert, Sam & De Rock, Bram & Kerstens, Pieter Jan & Vermeulen, Frederic, 2018. "Individual welfare analysis for collective households," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 98-114.
    16. Cherchye, Laurens & De Rock, Bram & Vermeulen, Frederic, 2012. "Economic well-being and poverty among the elderly: An analysis based on a collective consumption model," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 985-1000.
    17. Irene Botosaru & Chris Muris & Krishna Pendakur, 2020. "Intertemporal Collective Household Models: Identification in Short Panels with Unobserved Heterogeneity in Resource Shares," Department of Economics Working Papers 2020-09, McMaster University.
    18. Martina Menon & Elisa Pagani & Federico Perali, 2016. "A class of individual expenditure functions," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 4(2), pages 291-305, October.
    19. Calvi, Rossella & Penglase, Jacob & Tommasi, Denni & Wolf, Alexander, 2023. "The more the poorer? Resource sharing and scale economies in large families," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    20. Hubner, Stefan, 2023. "Identification of unobserved distribution factors and preferences in the collective household model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 234(1), pages 301-326.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Collective household model; Sharing rule; Household welfare; Intra-household inequality; Theil index.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation

    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:cca:wchild:56. 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: Giovanni Bert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/chccait.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.