Increasingly, development projects list social capital development and network brokerage among their objectives.  How do we quantitatively evaluate such initiatives?  Best practice, diff-in-diff methods may be impossible or too costly.  Here, we try using data that are byproducts of the...

The paper develops a model of decentralized metering decisions when selective metering is socially optimal. Households choose between two-part tariffs. Decentralization achieves social efficiency when the regulator, who knows household characteristics, gives household-specific compensation (via...

This paper develops a revealed preference methodology for exploring whether time inconsistencies in household choice are the product of nonstationarities at the individual level or the result of individual heterogeneity and renegotiation within the collective unit.  An empirical application to...

This paper provides a causal reason for failure in productive efficiency in the household and explains why some households may be less efficient than others.  In the theoretical model, spouses make labour allocation decisions in each period to generate income, facing a threat of divorce in the...

Using data from experimental games and household survey from 1,200 married couples in three sites in Ethiopia, this paper uses different versions of a voluntary contribution mechanism to test for household efficiency.  The experimental and econometric analyses provide many interesting results...

In the past 30 years, microfinance has carried many promises of social and economic transformation, with the shift towards targeting women being seen as a major strategic move through which the promise of social development could be most effectively delivered.  However, ethnographic studies...

Empirical studies of intra-household allocation has revealed that, in many instances, gender is an important determinant in the allocation of resources within the household.  Yet, within the theoretical literature, why gender matters within the household remains an open question.  In this...

This paper undertakes a comparison exercise to disentangle what drives the opposite findings regarding the effect of house prices on consumption documented in two papers using the same data set for the UK.  On the one hand, Campbell and Cocco (2007) find that old owners are the most benefited...

The income contribution of child work is undoubtedly a key factor influencing child work and schooling decisions. Yet, few studies have attempted to directly measure this contribution. This is particularly the case for work performed on the household farm, as is the case for the vast majority of...

Previous research has shown little difference in the average leisure time of men and women.  This finding is a challenge to the second shift argument, which suggests that increases in female labor market hours have not been compensated by equal decreases in household labor.  This paper...