Children are seldom accounted for in household behavioural models. They are usually assumed to have neither the capacity nor the power to influence the household decision process. The literature on collective models has so far incorporated children through the "caring preferences" of their...

We provide a nonparametric 'revealed preference' characterization of rational household behavior in terms of the collective consumption model, while accounting for general (possibly non-convex) individual preferences. We establish a Collective Axiom of Revealed Preference (CARP), which provides...

We adopt the collective approach to consumer behavior with egoistic agents, and assume that the household consumption is either private or public. We then show that (i) household demands have to satisfy testable constraints and (ii) some elements of the decision process can be retrieved from...

This paper applies the theory of relational contracts to make precise the idea that because households are engaged in a repeated non-cooperative game, Pareto efficient outcomes can be supported by self interest, given the specific pattern of specialisation and exchange which exists in the...

Much of the recent literature in household economics has been critical of unitary models of household decision-making. Most alternative models currently used are bargaining models and consensual models, including collective models. This paper discusses another alternative: independent individual...

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,...

Much analysis in macroeconomics empirically addresses economy-wide incentives behind consumer/investment choices by using insights from the way a single representative household would behave. Heterogeneity at the micro level can jeopardize attempts to back up the representative consumer...

Poverty measures in developing countries often ignore the distribution of resources within families and the gains from joint consumption. In this paper, we extend the collective model of household consumption to recover mother's, father's and children's shares together with economies of scale,...

The implementation of Gary Becker's (1965) time allocation model is hampered by the fact that values of the different time uses are usually not observed. In practice, one often assumes that the value of time is uniform across time uses by using market wages. This approach implies a fundamental...

Collective consumption decisions taken by the members of a household may prove inefficient. The impact of such inefficient household decisions on market performance is investigated. At one extreme, market efficiency can occur even when household decisions are inefficient, namely when household...