Variations in family budget shares by net family income

Section 5 provided tables showing average food expenditures classified by levels of net family income and each of a number of household characteristics considered in turn. This Section gives the results of a multivariate analysis of the food expenditure data in which net family income and all the household characteristics appear simultaneously. Household characteristics are correlated with one another (for example Income Support or Family Credit receipt is more common in some household composition types than in others). This analysis gives a view of the independent effects of income and each of the household characteristics

Demand properties in household Nash equilibrium

We study noncooperative household models with two agents and several voluntarily contributed public goods, deriving the counterpart to the Slutsky matrix and demonstrating the nature of the deviation of its properties from those of a true Slutsky matrix in the unitary model. We demonstrate the importance of distinguishing between cases in which there are and are not jointly contributed public goods and provide results characterising both cases. Demand properties are contrasted with those for collective models and conclusions drawn regarding the possibility of empirically testing the collective model against noncooperative alternatives

Noncooperative household demand

We study noncooperative household models with two agents and several voluntarily contributed public goods, deriving the counterpart to the Slutsky matrix and demonstrating the nature of the deviation of its properties from those of a true Slutsky matrix in the unitary model. We provide results characterising both cases in which there are and are not jointly contributed public goods. Demand properties are contrasted with those for collective models and conclusions drawn regarding the possibility of empirically testing the collective model against noncooperative alternatives and the noncooperative model against a general alternative. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

INCOME AND OUTCOMES - A STRUCTURAL MODEL OF INTRAHOUSEHOLD ALLOCATION

There is evidence from several sources that one cannot treat many-person households as a single decision maker. If this is the case, then factors such as the relative incomes of the household members may affect the final allocation decisions made by the household. We develop a method of identifying how ''incomes affect outcomes'' given conventional family expenditure data. The basic assumption we make is that household decision processes lead to efficient outcomes. We apply our method to a sample of Canadian couples with no children. We find that the final allocations of expenditures on each partner depend significantly on their relative incomes and ages and on the level of lifetime wealth

Ordinary Least Squares Estimation of the Intrahousehold Distribution of Expenditure

We provide a method to estimate resource shares—the fraction of total household expenditure allocated to each household member—using linear (e.g., ordinary least squares) estimation of Engel curves. The method is a linear reframing of the 2013 nonlinear model of Dunbar, Lewbel, and Pendakur, extended to allow single-parent and other complex households, scale economies in assignable goods, and complementarities between nonassignable goods and supplemented with a linear identification test. We apply the model to data from 12 countries and investigate resource shares, gender gaps, and poverty at the individual level. We reject equal sharing and find large gender gaps in resource shares, and consequently in poverty rates, in some countries

Using the CE to model household demand

Using data from the US Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE) from 1998 to 2010, we estimate a demand system for non durable goods, under different assumptions regarding the behavior of households. Thanks to the unique features of the CE, which records labor supply and information on durables together with income and demand, we are able to look at how assumptions of full intertemporal separability and separability of durables from non durables impact the demand estimation. We test, and reject, the separability assumptions and show how relaxing them affects the magnitude of the estimated income and price elasticities. This exercise illustrates the importance of building on the strengths of the CE as a comprehensive source of quantified information on household behavior if it is to fulfill its goal of providing government and policy makers with information on the impact of policy on household behavior and welfare

The effect of gender-targeted conditional cash transfers on household expenditures: evidence from a randomized experiment

This paper studies the differential effect of targeting cash transfers to men or women on the structure of household expenditures on non-durables. We study a policy intervention in the Republic of Macedonia, offering cash transfers to poor households, conditional on having their children attending secondary school. The recipient of the transfer is randomized across municipalities, with payments targeted to either the mother or the father of the child. We show that the gender of the recipient has an effect on the structure of expenditure shares. Targeting transfers to women increases the expenditure share on food by about 4 to 5 percentage points. At low levels of food expenditure, we observe a shift towards a more nutritious diet as a result of targeting women

The Effect of Gender-Targeted Conditional Cash Transfers on Household Expenditures: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment

This article studies the differential effect of targeting cash transfers to men or women on household expenditure on non-durables. We study a policy intervention in the Republic of North Macedonia that offers cash transfers to poor households, conditional on having their children attending secondary school. The recipient is randomised across municipalities, with payments targeted to either the mother or the father of the child. Targeting transfers to women increases the expenditure share on food by 4 to 5 percentage points. At low levels of food expenditure, there is a shift towards a more nutritious diet

Efficient Responses to Targeted Cash Transfers

We estimate and test the restrictions of a collective model of household consumption, using z-conditional demands, in the context of a large conditional cash transfer program in rural Mexico. The model can explain the impacts of the program on the structure of food consumption. We use two plausible and novel distribution factors: the random allocation of a cash transfer to women and the relative size and wealth of the husband’s and wife’s family networks. Our structure does better at predicting the effect of exogenous increases in household income than an alternative, unitary, structure. We cannot reject efficiency of household decisions

Welfare consequences of food prices increases: Evidence from rural Mexico

This paper presents an analysis of the welfare consequences of recent increases in food prices in Mexico using micro-level data. We estimate a QUAIDS model of demand for food, using data collected to evaluate the conditional cash transfer program Oportunidades. We show how the poor have been affected by the recent increases and changes in relative prices of foods. We also show how a conditional cash transfer program provides a means of alleviating the problem of increasing staple prices, and simulate the impact of such a policy on household welfare and consumer demand. We contrast this policy with alternative policy responses, such as price subsidies, which distort relative prices and are less well-targeted