Experimental measures of intra-household resource control

We study experimental measures of preferences for intra-household resource control among 3387 couples in Ghana and Uganda. We implement two incentivized tasks: (1) a game that measures willingness to pay for resource control in the household, and (2) dictator games played privately and jointly by sp...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ambler, Kate, Jones, Kelly M., Recalde, María P.
Formato: Journal Article
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: Elsevier 2024
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/152429
_version_ 1855530832939188224
author Ambler, Kate
Jones, Kelly M.
Recalde, María P.
author_browse Ambler, Kate
Jones, Kelly M.
Recalde, María P.
author_facet Ambler, Kate
Jones, Kelly M.
Recalde, María P.
author_sort Ambler, Kate
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description We study experimental measures of preferences for intra-household resource control among 3387 couples in Ghana and Uganda. We implement two incentivized tasks: (1) a game that measures willingness to pay for resource control in the household, and (2) dictator games played privately and jointly by spouses. Across study sites we find that women exhibit a higher willingness to pay for resource control than their husbands and have less influence over joint dictator game decisions. Importantly, behavior in the two tasks is correlated, suggesting that they capture similar underlying latent variables. In Uganda, experimental measures from both tasks are also robustly correlated with a range of survey measures of women's access to resources, agency, and wellbeing. This is not the case in Ghana, suggesting that contextual factors may be important, and researchers may want to collect both measures in a project. Like other recent papers, we find that an important fraction of respondents display negative willingness to pay for intra-household resource control. Our analysis shows that such behavior is displayed by women who have higher levels of economic empowerment and wellbeing, a result that contradicts previous conjectures made in the literature. Altogether, our analysis suggests that, despite lacking ideal theoretical properties, private dictator game decisions (even when collected only from the wife) can perform well as proxies of empowerment. JEL Codes: C9, D13, J12, J16
format Journal Article
id CGSpace152429
institution CGIAR Consortium
language Inglés
publishDate 2024
publishDateRange 2024
publishDateSort 2024
publisher Elsevier
publisherStr Elsevier
record_format dspace
spelling CGSpace1524292025-12-08T10:11:39Z Experimental measures of intra-household resource control Ambler, Kate Jones, Kelly M. Recalde, María P. bargaining power decision making households women's empowerment gender women We study experimental measures of preferences for intra-household resource control among 3387 couples in Ghana and Uganda. We implement two incentivized tasks: (1) a game that measures willingness to pay for resource control in the household, and (2) dictator games played privately and jointly by spouses. Across study sites we find that women exhibit a higher willingness to pay for resource control than their husbands and have less influence over joint dictator game decisions. Importantly, behavior in the two tasks is correlated, suggesting that they capture similar underlying latent variables. In Uganda, experimental measures from both tasks are also robustly correlated with a range of survey measures of women's access to resources, agency, and wellbeing. This is not the case in Ghana, suggesting that contextual factors may be important, and researchers may want to collect both measures in a project. Like other recent papers, we find that an important fraction of respondents display negative willingness to pay for intra-household resource control. Our analysis shows that such behavior is displayed by women who have higher levels of economic empowerment and wellbeing, a result that contradicts previous conjectures made in the literature. Altogether, our analysis suggests that, despite lacking ideal theoretical properties, private dictator game decisions (even when collected only from the wife) can perform well as proxies of empowerment. JEL Codes: C9, D13, J12, J16 2024-11 2024-09-27T13:46:48Z 2024-09-27T13:46:48Z Journal Article https://hdl.handle.net/10568/152429 en Open Access Elsevier Ambler, Kate; Jones, Kelly; and Recalde, María P. 2024. Experimental measures of intra-household resource control. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 227(November 2024): 106705. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2024.106705
spellingShingle bargaining power
decision making
households
women's empowerment
gender
women
Ambler, Kate
Jones, Kelly M.
Recalde, María P.
Experimental measures of intra-household resource control
title Experimental measures of intra-household resource control
title_full Experimental measures of intra-household resource control
title_fullStr Experimental measures of intra-household resource control
title_full_unstemmed Experimental measures of intra-household resource control
title_short Experimental measures of intra-household resource control
title_sort experimental measures of intra household resource control
topic bargaining power
decision making
households
women's empowerment
gender
women
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/152429
work_keys_str_mv AT amblerkate experimentalmeasuresofintrahouseholdresourcecontrol
AT joneskellym experimentalmeasuresofintrahouseholdresourcecontrol
AT recaldemariap experimentalmeasuresofintrahouseholdresourcecontrol