RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Out of the Wallet and into the Purse
JF Journal of Human Resources
JO J Hum Resour
FD University of Wisconsin Press
SP 325
OP 351
DO 10.3368/jhr.43.2.325
VO 43
IS 2
A1 Jennifer Ward-Batts
YR 2008
UL http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/43/2/325.abstract
AB This paper uses an exogenous change in the intrahousehold distribution of income, provided by a change in United Kingdom Family Allowance policy to test the income-pooling hypothesis implied by unitary household models. Expenditure shares are estimated for a wide range of goods using household-level data. Shifts in expenditure shares suggest that children and mothers benefited at the expense of fathers when this policy change shifted income within households from men to women. Similar shifts are not found among married-couple households with no children. This paper refutes income pooling, and confirms and extends results in Lundberg, Pollak, and Wales (1997).