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Resources at Marriage and Intrahousehold Allocation: Evidence from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and South Africa*
Author(s) -
Quisumbing Agnes R.,
Maluccio John A.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
oxford bulletin of economics and statistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.131
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1468-0084
pISSN - 0305-9049
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0084.t01-1-00052
Subject(s) - proxy (statistics) , unitary state , economics , bargaining power , human capital , developing country , demographic economics , pareto principle , development economics , time allocation , labour economics , economic growth , political science , microeconomics , operations management , management , machine learning , computer science , law
We test the unitary versus collective model of the household using specially designed data from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and South Africa. Human capital and individual assets at the time of marriage are used as proxy measures for bargaining power. In all four countries, we reject the unitary model as a description of household behaviour, but fail to reject the hypothesis that households are Pareto‐efficient. In Bangladesh and South Africa, women's assets increase expenditure shares on education, while in Ethiopia it is men's assets that have this effect. These increases have different implications for boys and girls across countries, however.