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Let's Talk About the Money: Spousal Communication, Expenditures, and Farm Production
Author(s) -
Chen Joyce J.,
Collins LaPorchia A.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
american journal of agricultural economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.949
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1467-8276
pISSN - 0002-9092
DOI - 10.1093/ajae/aau059
Subject(s) - inefficiency , production (economics) , scope (computer science) , information asymmetry , economics , margin (machine learning) , distribution (mathematics) , scale (ratio) , microeconomics , consumption (sociology) , economies of scope , public economics , econometrics , economies of scale , computer science , mathematics , mathematical analysis , physics , quantum mechanics , machine learning , programming language , social science , sociology
A burgeoning body of literature highlights asymmetric information among household members. However, little is known about the source of the asymmetry and its effect on efficiency. Using a unique survey of Ghanaian households, we examine the accuracy of spousal cross reports and the effect of discrepancies on farm production. We find that information problems pertain to scale (the quantity of resources) and scope (the distribution of resources), as well as allocation decisions on the margin (Engel curves). Moreover, we find that information asymmetries lead to inefficiency in production, and the effect is equivalent to about 15% of the variation across households.