IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/1956.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Intrafamily Allocation of Goods - How to Separate the Men From the Boys

Author

Listed:
  • Reuben Gronau

Abstract

The paper integrates the basic principles of consumption theory and the economics of human resources to generate a powerful method for estimating the distribution of consumption between parents and children. Invoking the assumption of separability between parents' and children's consumption and the corresponding assumption of two-stage budgeting, it is shown that one can estimate the parents' share in total consumption by analyzing the effect of demographic changes on the consumption of adult goods (i.e., goods consumed exclusively by parents). Using the U.S. 1972/73 Consumption Expenditure Survey it is found that white married families tend to allocate about three-quarters of their consumption to parents and one quarter to children. The children's share of consumption in black families does not fall short of those in white families, and the share in white families where the father is absent is even higher. The share increases with the number of children, uut the absolute level of consumption per child declines. These findings are quite robust to changes in functional form and data-base.

Suggested Citation

  • Reuben Gronau, 1986. "The Intrafamily Allocation of Goods - How to Separate the Men From the Boys," NBER Working Papers 1956, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1956
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w1956.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary S. Becker & H. Gregg Lewis, 1974. "Interaction between Quantity and Quality of Children," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital, pages 81-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Barnes, Roberta & Gillingham, Robert, 1984. "Demographic Effects in Demand Analysis: Estimation of the Quadratic Expenditure System Using Microdata," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 66(4), pages 591-601, November.
    3. Paul A. Samuelson, 1956. "Social Indifference Curves," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 70(1), pages 1-22.
    4. Deaton, Angus S & Muellbauer, John, 1986. "On Measuring Child Costs: With Applications to Poor Countries," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 720-744, August.
    5. Deaton,Angus & Muellbauer,John, 1980. "Economics and Consumer Behavior," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521296762, October.
    6. Jacques van der Gaag & Eugene Smolensky, 1982. "True Household Equivalence Scales And Characteristics Of The Poor In The United States," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 28(1), pages 17-28, March.
    7. Gronau, Reuben, 1988. "Consumption Technology and the Intrafamily Distribution of Resources:," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(6), pages 1183-1205, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Olivier Donni & Olivier Bargain, 2007. "A theory of child targeting," Working Papers 200703, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    2. Bruce Bradbury, 1995. "Household Semi-Public Goods and the Estimation of Consumer Equivalence Scales: Some First Steps," Microeconomics 9508001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Rodríguez Biasone, Juan Ignacio, 2019. "Gastos de consumo de las familias y el costo de los niños," Nülan. Deposited Documents 3150, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales, Centro de Documentación.
    4. Anderson VIL, 2023. "Children Costs in a One-Headed Household: Empirical Evidence from the UK," THEMA Working Papers 2022-21, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    5. Smith, Lisa C. & Chavas, Jean-Paul, 1999. "Supply response of West African agricultural households," FCND discussion papers 69, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    6. Jara-Díaz, Sergio & Rosales-Salas, Jorge, 2017. "Beyond transport time: A review of time use modeling," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 209-230.
    7. 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.
    8. Gozalo, Pedro L., 1997. "Nonparametric bootstrap analysis with applications to demographic effects in demand functions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 357-393, December.
    9. Gillian Hewitson, 2001. "A Survey of Feminist Economics," Working Papers 2001.01, School of Economics, La Trobe University.
    10. BARGAIN Olivier & DONNI Olivier, 2010. "The Measurement of Child Costs: A Rothbarth-Type Method Consistent with Scale Economies and Parents’ Bargaining," LISER Working Paper Series 2010-30, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    11. André de Palma & Nathalie Picard & Robin Lindsey, 2024. "Activity and transportation decisions within households," Chapters, in: Stephane Hess & Andrew Daly (ed.), Handbook of Choice Modelling, chapter 16, pages 426-451, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. J. Gimenez-Nadal & Jose Molina, 2013. "Parents’ education as a determinant of educational childcare time," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(2), pages 719-749, April.
    13. Theis Theisen, 2011. "Household size and city structure," ERES eres2011_231, European Real Estate Society (ERES).
    14. Ms. Gabriela Inchauste, 2001. "Intrahousehold Allocation of Resources: The Bolivian Family," IMF Working Papers 2001/057, International Monetary Fund.
    15. Aaberge, Rolf & Mogstad, Magne & Peragine, Vito, 2011. "Measuring long-term inequality of opportunity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(3), pages 193-204.
    16. Patricia Apps & Ray Rees, 2022. "Inequality measurement and tax/transfer policy," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 29(4), pages 953-984, August.
    17. Whitehouse, Edward, 2000. "How Poor are the Old? A Survey of Evidence from 44 Countries," MPRA Paper 14177, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Merz, Joachim & Garner, Thesia & Smeeding, Timothy M. & Faik, Jürgen & Johnson, David, 1994. "Two Scales, One Methodology - Expenditure Based Equivalence Scales for the United States and Germany," MPRA Paper 7233, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Martin Browning & Valérie Lechene, 2003. "Children and Demand: Direct and Non-Direct Effects," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 9-31, January.
    20. Dreze, Jean & Srinivasan, P. V., 1997. "Widowhood and poverty in rural India: Some inferences from household survey data," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 217-234, December.

    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:nbr:nberwo:1956. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.