Household Time Allocation and Models of Behavior: A Theory of Sorts

We make the point that a flexible specification of spousal preferences and household production technology precludes the possibility of using revealed preference data on household time allocations to determine the manner in which spouses interact. Under strong, but standard, assumptions regarding marriage market equilibria, marital sorting patterns can be used essentially as "out of sample" information that allows us to assess whether household behavior is cooperative. We use a sample of households drawn from a recent wave of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, and find some evidence supporting the view that households behave in a cooperative manner.