We present identification and estimation results for the "collective" model of labour supply in which there are discrete choices, censoring of hours and nonparticipation in employment. We derive the collective restrictions on labour supply functions and contrast them with restrictions implied by...

To understand the household decision-making process regarding food expenditures for children in poor households in Nairobi, we conduct an experiment with 424 married couples. In the experiment, the spouses (individually and jointly) allocated money between themselves and nutritious meals for one...

The extent to which individuals commit to their partner for life has important implications. This paper develops a lifecycle collective model of the household, through which it characterizes behavior in three prominent alternative types of commitment: full, limited, and no commitment. We propose...

We develop a two-sided matching model with positive sorting, divorce and remarriage. Match quality for each couple is revealed ex post and those with poor draws divorce. Competition determines lifetime expected utilities but per-period utilities depend on the laws that govern the distribution of...

We develop a collective household model with spousal matching in which there exists marital gains to assortative matching and marriage quality for each couple is revealed ex post. Changes in alimony laws are shown to affect existing couples and couples-to-be differently. For existing couples,...

We present a model with pre-marital schooling investment, endogenous marital matching and spousal specialization in homework and market production. Investment in schooling raises ages and generates two kinds of returns in our framework: a labor-market return and a marriage-market return because...

"We reconsider the well known Becker-Coase (BC) argument, according to which changes in divorce laws should not affect divorce rates, in the context of households which consume public goods in addition to private goods. For this result to hold, utility must be transferable both within marriage...

This paper adopts an intertemporal labor supply perspective to propose a test that allows us to distinguish between intra-household non-commitment, limited commitment, and full commitment. It investigates whether, after controling for current and future (expected) wages, past wage shocks have a...

This article considers non-unitary models of household behavior. These models suppose explicitly that households consist of a number of different members with preferences that are different from each other. They can be split up into two principal categories: cooperative (or collective) models,...

We develop a matching model on the marriage market, where individuals have preferences over the smoking status of potential mates, and over their socioeconomic quality. Spousal smoking is bad for non-smokers, but it is neutral for smokers, while individuals always prefer high socioeconomic...