Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Intra-household allocation'

There are four parts to this thesis: the first chapter analyses the structure of leisure in couples with particular emphasis on joint leisure. We take a structural approach and model the household as a two-stage decision making unit. The findings suggest that couples see joint leisure as a distinct good from private leisure. Specifically when a household decides to have more leisure, almost 40 percent of this increase is allocated to joint leisure as opposed to only 8 to 15 percent allocated to male private leisure. Furthermore, couples prefer to spend leisure together (synchronisation) relative to spending time independently, giving joint leisure the largest weight in the utility function. The findings further suggest that demographics can play a large role in determining the patterns of spousal leisure, with ethnicity and job characteristics being important factors. Finally, when analysing weekend time use patterns, there is evidence to suggest that Saturdays should be distinguished from Sundays as approximately 41 percent more joint leisure is observed on Sundays. The second chapter of the thesis begins our examination of the UK income taxation reform in 1990. The UK went from a system of joint taxation to independent taxation of couples and this reform may have had important implications for households. Across countries, there is a large variation in the income tax treatment of couples. Over the last three decades, many countries have undergone reforms in their tax systems, some have moved from joint to independent taxation, some from independent to joint, while others have begun the practice of allowing couples to choose the system they prefer. This chapter aims to give an overview of the tax treatment of couples and outlines the differences across countries, with particular emphasis on the tax reform in the UK. The third chapter investigates the UK income taxation reform in 1990 and examines how the change from a system of joint to independent taxation of couples has shifted women's relative earning potentials in the household, and how this in turn has led to changes in intra-household assignable clothing expenditures. I apply my method to a sample of UK couples with children and the findings of this chapter show that an exogenous increase in women's income relative to their spouse significantly and substantially increases female clothing expenditure and decreases male clothing expenditure ceteris paribus. However an increase in relative female earnings does not necessarily mean that children will do better relatively. The final outcome may depend on the type of transfer in question. In addition, there is evidence that the final allocations of expenditures on each partner and children may depend significantly on distribution factors such as spousal relative incomes, age gap and educational gap, despite the fact that these variables do not impact on preferences nor on budgets directly. This provides further evidence against the unitary framework in favour of the collective approach and the sharing rule interpretation of how households make decisions in practice. The final chapter of this thesis examines the effects of the tax reform in 1990 with particular emphasis on female labour supply. A method of clarifying the concept of a spouse's individual net income under a joint tax regime is proposed and following the methodology of Blundell et al (2007), the labour supply elasticities for both male and female are estimated. The analysis is extended further to include children in the model and the results show that both the number of children and their age are highly significant for women's labour supply and to a smaller extent also for men. Testing the income pooling hypothesis, the unitary model is not rejected. However, the results strongly reject the hypothesis that distribution factors have no effect on labour supply. The results also suggest that for the group of women affected, the reform generated two opposing effects on their labour supply: a positive effect from an increase in net wage and a negative effect from an increase in bargaining power. On balance, we find that a typical female decreased her labour supply by approximately 2.6 hours per week, yet she still experienced a 22 percent increase in her net income.

Background: It is often assumed that pregnant women are discriminated against in the allocation of food in South Asian households. Better understanding of food allocation trends and determinants could inform how nutrition programs can reduce intrahousehold inequity and improve maternal and child nutritional outcomes. Objectives: Measure and explain inequity in intra-household food allocation in rural Nepal by (1) testing for differences in calorie adequacy ratios between household members, (2) identifying determinants of Relative Dietary Energy Adequacy Ratios (RDEARs) – a measure of intra-household food allocation, and (3) testing the effects of ‘Participatory Learning and Action’ (PLA) women’s groups, PLA with food transfers, and PLA with cash transfers, on RDEARs and other dietary outcomes. Methods: Interventions were tested in a four-arm cluster-randomised controlled trial in 80 clusters in Dhanusha and Mahottari districts, Nepal. In 805 rural households across the trial arms, pregnant women, mothers-in-law, and male household heads responded to between one and three 24-hour dietary recalls each. Effects were analysed by fitting multivariable linear and logit regressions. Results: Pregnant women had lower calorie adequacy ratios (median=0.84) than their mothers-in-law (0.97; z=3.80, p < 0.001) and male household heads (1.07; z=5.39, p < 0.001). The biggest predictor of RDEARs was pregnant women’s relative income; RDEARs between pregnant women and household heads were 30% higher if she earned the same or more than her spouse. Compared with the control, RDEARs between pregnant women and their mothers-in-law were 12% higher in the PLA plus food arm (log-RDEAR β 0.12 (95%CI 0.02, 0.21), p=0.014) but RDEARs between pregnant women and household heads were lower in the PLA only arm (-0.11 (-0.19, -0.02), p=0.020). Conclusions: Food is allocated inequitably, and programs should deliberately target women to improve nutritional outcomes. Food transfer programs should consider household members’ preferences for different foods; other programs could improve nutrition by increasing women’s employment opportunities.

This dissertation studies gender, intra-household allocation and development. Industrialization and globalization has expanded opportunities for women in developing countries to work in manufacturing and service sector jobs often located outside their villages. The first chapter of this dissertation studies whether such job opportunities can lead to socio-economic changes for women, particularly with regard to marriage, fertility and empowerment. The second chapter examines the impact of a large public workfare program targeting rural households in India on children. In particular, we study the impact of time use by the youngest and oldest children in a household as adult time use changes in response to new work opportunities. The final chapter of this dissertation studies the impact of age of marriage on female mobility and autonomy in rural India.
Economics

This thesis initially reviews the current state of economic theory on the intra-household allocation of resources. It examines the 'game theory' framework within which the models are constructed, suggesting that such a framework, as yet, has been unable to deal with the complex combination of power, altruism, and trust that lead to the conflictual/cooperative nature of spousal relationships. It examines the problems of constructing indices of power, and suggests a way in which, in this particular case, some of the problems may be overcome. Using qualitative and quantitative evidence from Uganda, the thesis describes how bridewealth, division of household assets on death or divorce, attitudes to women earning an income and accumulating assets, and marital violence effect the financial relationship and the balance of power between spouses. Issues such as household budgeting systems, secrecy, female participation rates, and division of responsibility for household expenditure are seen as important elements of this relationship. Data collected on child nutrition is used to examine the impact that these factors have on child welfare.

Cette thèse étudie la formation des familles, leur organisation et les systèmes d’éducation. Les deux premiers chapitres traitent du choix du conjoint et du partage des ressources au sein du couple. Je modélise tout d’abord comment les individus se rencontrent et décident de se mettre en couple ou non en fonction de leur niveau d’éducation, de leur revenu et leur apparence physique. J’utilise des données américaines où j’observe qui est marié avec qui et pour combien de temps, ce qui me permet d’identifier les préférences des individus. Le deuxième chapitre analyse les effets du mariage sur certaines tendances économiques comme les inégalités de revenu ou les offres de travail. Dans ce chapitre, les personnes en couple se partagent leur revenu et choisissent ensemble la meilleure organisation pour travailler et accomplir les taches domestiques et élever les enfants. Avec des données britanniques, j’identifie les transferts de revenu qui existent entre les hommes et les femmes et je montre que ces transferts augmentent le travail des hommes mariés et diminuent celui des femmes mariées. Les deux derniers chapitres étudient l’efficacité du collège français et notamment la pratique du redoublement. Le troisième chapitre mobilise des méthodes de décomposition pour évaluer dans quelle mesure la baisse des scores des élèves français aux tests PISA peut être attribuée à des changements dans les caractéristiques des élèves ou à des changements dans les rendements de l’éducation. Enfin, le dernier chapitre se concentre particulièrement sur le redoublement et utilise des données de panel sur les collégiens français pour évaluer l’impact du redoublement sur leurs résultats
This dissertation deals with family formation, family organization and education systems. The first two chapters study how people choose their partners and how they share their income. First, I focus on couple formation and I model how people meet and decide to match or not. People can choose their partner according to their education level, their wage and their physical attractiveness. Using American data, I observe who matches with whom and who stays single and for how long to recover the preferences of individuals in terms of mating. The second chapter attempts to understand how the efficiency and the sorting of the marriage market could impact economic outcomes such as income inequalities or labor supplies. In this chapter, when people marry, they share their income and decide how much each of them will work on the market and at home to raise children or do the housework. Using British data, I recover the amount of monetary transfers which exist between household members and show that these transfers make married women work less on the market and married men work more. The last two chapters of this dissertation focus on the French education system and on the impact of grade retention policies. In the third chapter I use decomposition methods to assess to which extent the decrease in French student’s score at PISA tests can be attributed to the changes in student’s characteristics or to the changes in school returns. Finally, in the last chapter, I use an estimation strategy to get rid of this selection effect and we use a panel data on French High School students to evaluate the impact of grade retention on their scores

This thesis contributes to two completely unrelated debates in the economic literature, similar only in the relatively high degree of controversy characterizing each one.

The first part is methodological and macroeconomic in nature, addressing the question of whether the distribution of income across countries is converging (i.e. are the poor catching up to the rich?) or diverging (i.e. are we witnessing the formation of two exclusive clubs, one for poor countries and another one for rich countries?). Applications of the simple Markov model to this question have generated evidence in favor of the divergence hypothesis. In the first chapter, I critically review these results. I use statistical inference to show that the divergence results are not statistically robust, and I explain that this instability of the results comes from the application of a model for discrete data to data that is actually continuous. In the second chapter, I reposition the whole convergence-divergence debate by placing it in the context of Silverman’s classic survey of non-parametric density estimation techniques. This allows me to use the basic notions of fuzzy logic to adapt the simple Markov chain model to continuous data. When I apply the newly adapted Markov chain model to the cross-country distribution question, I find evidence against the divergence hypothesis, and this evidence is statistically robust.

The second part of the thesis is empirical and microeconomic in nature. I question whether observed differences between husbands’ and wives’ participation in labor markets are due to different preferences or to different constraints. My identification strategy is based on the idea that the more power an individual has relative to his/her partner, the more his/her actions will reflect his/her preferences. I use 2001 PSID data on cohabiting couples to estimate a simultaneous equations model of the spousal time allocation decision. My results confirm the stylized fact that specialization and trade does not explain time allocation for couples in which the wife is the primary breadwinner, and suggest that power could provide a more general explanation of the observations. My results show that wives with relatively more power choose to work more on the labor market and less at home, whereas husbands with more power choose to do the opposite. Since women start out from a lower level of labor market participation than men do, it would seem that spouses’ agree that the ideal mix of market work and housework lies somewhere between the husbands’ and the wives’ current positions.
Doctorat en sciences économiques, Orientation économie
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Thesis advisor: Arthur Lewbel
The dissertation consists of three essays on different aspects of the collective household models in the household economics literature. The first essay estimates a collective household model for evaluating the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) among older households. I use longitudinal Homescan data to identify SNAP-eligible food. I find that husbands have relatively stronger preferences for food than wives, and that household demand is affected by bargaining power (i.e., control over resources) within households. Failure to account for this difference in preferences and control leads to underestimates of older couples' total food demand, and of their implied response (at both intensive and extensive margins) to a counterfactual experiment of replacing SNAP with a cash transfer program. I find that most eligible older households spend more on SNAP-eligible food than would be allowed by their SNAP benefits. Their spending patterns suggest that their poor diet is mainly due to low income rather than tastes. Overall these findings imply that a SNAP comparable cash transfer can be an effective tool to achieve the goals of the SNAP program. The second essay is joint work with my advisor Arthur Lewbel. We first prove identification of coefficients in a class of semiparametric models. We then apply these results to identify collective household consumption models. We extend the existing literature by proving point identification, rather than the weaker generic identification, of all the features of a collective household (including price effects). Moreover, we do so in a model where goods can be partly shared, and allowing children to have their own preferences, without observing child specific goods. We estimate the model using Japanese consumption data, where we find new results regarding the sharing and division of goods among husbands, wives, and children. The third essay is a joint paper with Tomoki Fujii. We study the intra-household inequality in resource allocation and bargaining within Japanese couples without children. We exploit a unique Japanese dataset in which individual private expenditures, savings, and time use information are available. From the data, we find that on average, the husband enjoys 1.5 times more purely private expenditures than the wife. However, the data only provides resource allocation on purely private expenditures, while 68 percent of household expenditures are devoted to the family, i.e., joint expenditures. We refer to the collective household literature in order to recover the unobserved sharing of total household expenditures, including both private and public goods. We find that the model-predicted sharing pattern is moderately consistent with the individual expenditure data. However, the intra-household inequality would be underestimated if we only use the sharing in purely private expenditures from the data. We find that Japanese wives are relatively disadvantaged to their husbands, no matter in purely private expenditures, total household expenditures, or gains from marriage. The findings in this paper provides certain external validity in terms of the collective household model of consumption, which we argue should be widely adopted in analyzing individual welfare in multi-person households
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Economics

This thesis examines three questions concerned with the relative income needs of families of different sizes - often summarised by indices known as ???equivalence scales???. The first is the extent to which researchers and policy makers should offset the costs of family composition (eg the expenditure costs of children) with the benefits associated with demographic choice (eg the ???joys of parenthood???). Chapter 2 concludes that there are demographic and financial market constraints that will often make a narrow focus on expenditure costs appropriate for distributional research and tax/transfer policies. However, this will not always be the case. One implication of this result is that it may be reasonable for distributional research to use different equivalence scales for adults and children in the same household. Part 2 of the thesis introduces a new method for the estimation of the within-household income distribution and expenditure costs of different family types. This is based upon the household welfare model of Samuelson together with Lau???s method for modelling the joint consumption of household goods. In Chapter 4, this method is applied to the estimation of equivalence scales for older singles and married couples. The estimation is based upon a detailed set of assumptions about the extent of joint consumption for 17 different commodity groups. The main conclusions are that: the theoretical model fits the observed behaviour well (with the exception of some home production effects); that aged couples share their income relatively evenly; and that the relative rate of pension for aged singles in Australia is probably too low. In Part 3, the thesis examines how changes in poverty can be estimated when there is uncertainty about the equivalence scale. The thesis proposes a new method which permits a set of upper and lower bounds for the equivalence scale to be assumed, which in turn determine upper and lower bounds for the increase in poverty. This method is applied to measure the change in poverty in Australia during the 1980s. Equivalence scales can be found that imply either an increase or a decrease in poverty.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2008.
Title from electronic title page (viewed Feb. 17, 2009). "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Public Policy." Discipline: Public Policy; Department/School: Public Policy.

My thesis examines food allocation and nutritional outcomes in a sample of 152 individuals in thirty-two households of sugarcane workers in the municipality of Gameleira, Northeast Brazil. Anthropometric data show that undernutrition and overnutrition coexist in the study population, and often within households – a consequence of the changes in diet and physical activity linked to the nutrition transition. Food allocation was examined using an indicator of the frequency of consumption of high status foods - non-staple foods which are considered more desirable than staples because they add variety and taste to an otherwise monotonous diet. I created an intra-household index of food allocation in order to observe each individual's consumption in relation to the average in his or her household at two seasonal points of the year. The sample was split into two groups, a group of more affluent households in which high status foods were eaten on the harvest and non-harvest dietary recalls, and a group of less affluent households in which no-one ate high status foods on the non-harvest recall. I found gender biases in the allocation of food in favour of men relative to women, and girls relative to boys, in the higher income group, but no gender biases in the group of less affluent households. In relation to age, I found biases in favour of children relative to adults in less affluent households, but not during seasonal shortage in the higher income households. The biases were greater in households with higher incomes, but lower in households in which women controlled some household income relative to households in which men controlled all income. I considered whether discriminatory behaviour underpins these biases, based largely on periods of observation in a sub-sample of six households, and concluded that food distribution operates as a powerful medium for the expression of differential status among men and women, but not among boys and girls, who have equal status in this population.

Thesis (MComm)--University of Stellenbosch, 2011.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Social assistance is a large and fiscally costly component of anti-poverty policy in South Africa and therefore lends to the questions: Are the grants effective tools for reducing poverty in South Africa and, moreover, how significant is their impact on poverty? As a measure of reducing poverty and improving the non-social indicators of the poor, the government has expanded the social grants since the advent of the new democracy. The country‟s social grant system is advanced and covers a broad range of individuals, as it is intended to cover vulnerable individuals over their life course from childhood to adulthood and into old age. Policy discourse surrounding the grants centres on the sustainability of the system and their implications for development. It is therefore important that their significance is shown and that their impact is illustrated by highlighting their reach into severely poor households. As a measure of poverty alleviation on their own, the grants are not enough and South Africa‟s poverty alleviation strategy has to rest primarily on economic growth and job creation. In addition, there are significant challenges in the system, such as the fact that there is no poverty grant targeted specifically at the unemployed; consequently, too much strain is placed on the resources of grant-receiving households that the whole household is plunged into poverty. Accordingly, the question this raises is: How can government solve the problem of the poor clustering around these grants? This dissertation will systematically show that the use of social security as a poverty-alleviating tool is effective given the extent of poverty in South Africa and the limitations on resources. It will also show that the decision-making structures in households influence the way grants affect the resource allocation needed for achieving lower levels of poverty. The extent to which the cash transferred to poor households via the grant programmes reduces poverty is likely to be influenced significantly by the decision-making structures in the grant-receiving households. There is evidence that grant money is shared in extended households, which suggests that decision making is broadly unitary or cooperative. However, we can only observe the outcomes and not the decision-making process in this regard and therefore can only draw tentative conclusions. Although there is cause for concern regarding the propensity of social grants to affect people‟s behaviour negatively, there is a case to be made for retaining grants as an important, though not the only, form of anti-poverty strategy. This highlights the need for continued research on the labour market and the social grants causal relationship. It also shows that research into the fertility effects of the grants is wanting, especially if there are speculative concerns that might inform policy on the impact of CSG on fertility.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Sosiale bystand is „n groot en duur fiskale komponent van anti-armoede verligtingsbeleid in Suid Afrika en lei daarom tot die vrae: Is die toelaes effektiewe instrumente om armoede te verlig in Suid Afrika, en nog meer, hoe noemenswaardig is hulle impak op armoede? As „n maatstaf om armoede te verlig en die nie-sosiale armoede- aanwysers te verbeter van die armes, het die regering die sosiale toelaes vermeerder sedert die aanvang van demokrasie. Die land se sosiale toelae stelsel is gevorderd en dek „n wye verskeidenheid groepe van individue, aangesien dit bedoel is om weerlose individue te dek vanaf kind tot volwassene deurlopend tot die bejaarde. Beleidsdiskoers om die toelaes fokus op die volhoubaarheid van die stelsel en die implikasies daarvan vir ontwikkeling. Dit is daarom van belang dat die belangrikheid hiervan uitgewys word en die impak daarvan geillustreer word, deur op hul trefkrag te fokus in die armste van huishoudings. As „n middel to armoedeverligting op sigself is toelaes nie voldoende nie, en Suid-Afrika se armoede verligtingstrategie moet hoofsaaklik lê in werkskepping en ekonomiese groei. Verder is daar belangrike uitdagings in die stelsel, soos byvoorbeeld die feit dat daar geen armoede toelaes spesifiek gemik op die werkloses is nie; „n gevolg hiervan is dat daar te veel druk geplaas word op die bronne van die huishoudings wat toelaes ontvang en dat die hele huishouding in armoede gedompel word. Gevolglik ontstaan die vraag: Hoe kan die regering die probleem oplos van konsentrering van die armes rondom die toelaes? Hierdie dissertasie sal sistematies wys dat die gebruik van sosiale sekuriteit as „n armoede- verligtingsbeleid is effektiek gegewe die omvangreikheid van armoede in Suid Afrika en die beperkings op bronne. Dit sal ook wys dat die besluitnemingstrukture in huishoudings beinvloed die manier waarop toelaes die bron-allokasie beinvloed om laer vlakke van armoede te bereik. Die vlak waartoe die kontant oordraging na die arm huishoudings via die toelaes die vlak van armoede verlig word in alle waarskynlikheid tot „n groot mate beinvloed deur die besluitnemingstrukture in sodanige huishoudings wat toelaes ontvang. Daar is bewyse dat die toelaes gedeel word in uitgebreide huishoudings, wat daarop aandui dat besluitneming breedweg unitêr geneem word of gesamentlik. Ons kan egter slegs die uitkomste en nie die besluitnemingsproses in die verband bespeur nie en kan daarom slegs tot tentatiewe gevolgtrekkings kom. Alhoewel daar wel rede to kommer is vir die geneigdheid van toelaes om mense se gedrag negatief te beinvloed, is waar wel „n saak om toelaes te behou, hoewel nie as die enigste, maar wel as „n belangrike vorm van armoedeverligting. Dit lê die klem op die nodigheid van deurlopende navorsing op die arbeidsmark en die toelae- oorsaaklikheidsverhouding. Dit wys ook dat navorsing op die vrugbaarheidseffek van die toelaes is nodig, veral as daar spekulatiewe besorgdheid is wat die beleid op die impak van kindertoelaes op fertiliteit mag beinvloed.

The aim of this paper is to study intra household allocation of capital income by using data on Swedish observations. The 1991 tax reform was to change the taxation on capital income from a progressive to a flat tax system. Before the tax reform there were incentives to allocate capital income to the spouses with the lowest income of labor in order to reduce the total tax burden. The data describes the year of 1989 and 1993, those we choose to examine. Using Swedish data from LINDA database we estimate a quotient by ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. The explaining variables in the model are chosen based on pre-studies regarding intra household allocation and we expect those to have an impact on the quota. We find a significant allocation before the tax reform due to the incentives to shift income. In comparison with the results from 1993 we find a significant change in the quota that could indicate reallocation.

This Thesis applies one of the most popular household models to the allocation of resources within poor rural households. Based on Browning and Goertz (2007) seminal Collective Household Model, the first Chapter conducts a literature review and derives conditions for identifying and testing the model. The next Chapter amends this model to evaluate efficiency of the intra-household allocation of male and female labour inputs in the domestic production of multiple crops. Using survey data from Uganda it is found that the division of labour between food and cash crops is made according to comparative advantage, but that Pareto improvements could be achieved by reallocating labour between male- and female-controlled plots. The final Chapter analyses the distribution of private consumption and leisure within rural couples in Tanzania. The findings provide limited support for the Collective Model, but are consistent with non-unitary household behaviour.

This thesis comprises three stand-alone chapters: The first chapter is on the effect of natural disasters on labor markets. Using data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey, the Desinventar database, the US Geological Survey and district level employment indicators, we explore how a large earthquake in Indonesia affected local labor markets, in particular the evolution of wages and employment across sectors. We find that wage growth in the agriculture sector is significantly higher in earthquake affected areas. We propose two mechanisms for this result and show evidence for both mechanisms. The second chapter investigates the intra-household allocation of leisure and consumption among siblings. Children are often treated as passive members in the household and their preferences over consumption and leisure are rarely modeled. This chapter considers children as agents with their own preferences over leisure and consumption and builds a theoretical and empirical model for children's time and consumption allocations in a household. We test the predictions of the model with data from Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam. The results suggest that differences in siblings' relative time and consumption allocations are driven by their relative preferences over leisure and consumption rather than differences in parents' relative altruism. The third chapter examines the cost of transport infrastructure in developing countries. To our knowledge, this is the first study that analyzes drivers of unit costs of construction of transport infrastructure using a large data set of 3,322 unit costs of road work activities in low and middle income countries. We find a large dispersion in unit costs for comparable work activities. Unit costs are significantly higher in conflict and corrupt countries, and these effects are robust to controlling for a country's public investment capacity and business environment. Finally, higher unit costs are significantly negatively correlated with infrastructure provision.

L'incertitude pèse sur les ménages ruraux des pays en développement. Cette thèse vise d'une part à mieux comprendre quels sont les conséquences de cette vulnérabilité sur les comportements et d'autre part à analyser la mise en œuvre et l'impact des stratégies de gestion de risque, qu'elles soient internes ou externes au ménage. Le premier chapitre se concentre sur l'effet de l'exposition au risque foncier sur le comportement d'épargne en Angola. Il établit que les ménages non dotés de documents de propriété ne sont pas à même de cumuler une épargne de précaution. Ce comportement d'auto-couverture ne se manifeste que lors du cumul de plusieurs risques. Le second chapitre se focalise sur la prise de décision à l'intérieur du ménage pour le choix de stratégies de diversification. Il s'agit d'étudier l'allocation du temps de travail des femmes au Sénégal entre le travail domestique et les activités génératrices de revenus. Un modèle de type sphères séparées avec un transfert entre conjoints est validé. Le faible rôle des incitations financières et l'importance du pouvoir de négociation sont démontrés. Le dernier chapitre analyse l'impact sur la vulnérabilité des ménages d'une intervention extérieure au travers d'un programme visant à l'accès aux services énergétiques. Son impact est mesuré sur la nutrition des enfants. Les résultats démontrent un effet positif et progressif de la présence de l'infrastructure sur la nutrition de long terme. L'intensité de fonctionnement réduit la malnutrition de court terme. Un effet de diffusion est également établi. Ces trois chapitres permettent de montrer l'incapacité des ménages à mettre en place des stratégies de lutte contre la vulnérabilité de façon autonome. Elles prouvent ensuite la nécessité de développer l'accès aux marchés dans les zones rurales. Enfin, le rôle de l'intervention extérieure pour fournir des instruments de gestion aux ménages est souligné.

Une des marques du développement est la résorption du décalage entre la distribution spatiale de l’activité économique et celle de la population. Cette thèse étudie les conséquences d’une telle résorption sous l’effet de la migration ou d’une redistribution géographique de l’activité économique. Le premier chapitre s’intéresse à la relation entre migrants internationaux et foyers d’origine. Il met en lumière l’importance, pour les envois de fonds et les investissements, des croyances des migrants et de l’asymétrie d’information, aggravée par la distance, entre migrants et destinataires de ces envois. Le deuxième chapitre explore la transformation de l’économie d’accueil sous l’effet d’un afflux de migrants venus des campagnes en ville, en Chine. Il mesure d’abord leur impact sur le marché du travail à destination, puis examine comment ils affectent l’allocation des facteurs de production et les contraintes rencontrées par les entreprises sur les marchés du travail et du capital. Le troisième chapitre étudie l’impact sur le long terme d’un vaste programme d’industrialisation réalisé en Chine, et montre un retour de fortune. Ce renversement est imputé aux distorsions introduites sur le marché du travail local par la présence de grands complexes manufacturiers. Ce chapitre met en évidence le rôle de la migration pour surmonter ces imperfections et amener l’étape ultérieure de la transformation structurelle : le passage de l’industrie lourde à la production de biens de consommation et de services
A key characteristic of the process of economic development is the shrinking spatial mismatch between economic activity and population. This thesis analyzes what happens when this spatial mismatch is reduced, as people’s places of residence and work or the geographical distribution of economic activity is altered. Chapter I deals with the relationship between international migrants and their households of origin. It sheds light on the importance for remittances and investments of migrants' beliefs and the information asymmetry between remittance senders and recipients that distance aggravates. Chapter II explores the transformation of the receiving economy due to an influx of rural-to-urban migrants in China. It first quantifies the effect of immigrants on the labor market at destination, and then investigates their impact on the reallocation of production factors and factor-market constraints faced by urban firms. Chapter III focuses on the long-term impact of a large industrialization plan in China. It reveals a reversal pattern due to the distortions in local labor markets induced by the presence of big plants. It highlights the role of migration in overcoming such imperfections and in bringing about the later stage of structural transformation—from heavy industry to consumption goods and services

Wu, Shunan.
Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 49-56).
Abstract also in Chinese.
"Collective Labor Supply, Household Production and Intra-household Allocation in Urban China" --- p.i
Abstract --- p.i
論文摘要 --- p.ii
Acknowledgement --- p.iii
List of Tables --- p.v
Chapter I. --- Introduction --- p.1
Chapter II. --- Literature Review --- p.4
Chapter 2.1 --- China´ةs evolving labor market --- p.4
Chapter 2.2 --- Gender earnings gap in the labor market in urban China --- p.6
Chapter 2.3 --- Male and female labor force participation --- p.7
Chapter 2.4 --- Intra-household allocation --- p.10
Chapter 2.5 --- The collective model of labor supply --- p.14
Chapter III. --- Theoretical model and empirical specification --- p.18
Chapter IV. --- Data and empirical results --- p.24
Chapter V. --- Conclusion --- p.43
Appendix --- p.46
References --- p.49

Yuk-fai Fong.
Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1996.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69-71).
Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.1
Chapter 2. --- Review of Related Literature and Motivation of Research
Chapter 2.1 --- "Browning, Bourguignon, Chiappori and Lechene (1994)" --- p.6
Chapter 2.2 --- Chiappori (1992) --- p.9
Chapter 2.3 --- "Bourguignon, Browning, Chiappori and Lechene (1993)" --- p.10
Chapter 2.4 --- Motivation of Research --- p.11
Chapter 3. --- The Identification of non-assignable consumption
Chapter 3.1 --- Extension from Previous Results --- p.15
Chapter 3.2 --- An Alternative Approach --- p.18
Chapter 4. --- Identification in case of Incomplete Observation of Private Expenditure
Chapter 4.1 --- The BBCL Approach --- p.22
Chapter 4.2 --- An Alternative Approach of Identification --- p.24
Chapter 4.3 --- Inclusion of Exogenous variables in Sharing Rule: Structural vs. Reduced form --- p.30
Chapter 4.4 --- Test for Omission of Some Items in the Total Private Expenditure --- p.35
Chapter 4.5 --- Designation of Nature of Goods- A Remark --- p.36
Chapter 5. --- Extension to Include Private Leisure as a Choice Variable of Individuals
Chapter 5.1 --- Difficulties in Identification of Sharing Rule of Total Private Expenditure in a Framework of Free Labor Choice --- p.38
Chapter 5.2 --- Identification of Sharing Rule of Total Private Expenditure Without Observation of Private Leisure --- p.41
Chapter 5.3 --- Identification of Sharing Rule in Structural Form with the Observation of Unearned Incomes --- p.46
Chapter 6. --- Possibility of Identifying the Sharing Rule of Total Private Expenditure under Incomplete Observation of Consumption of Commodities --- p.49
Chapter 6.1 --- Identification of ) --- p.50
Chapter 7. --- Parametric Examples for Illustration
Chapter 7.1 --- Example I --- p.57
Chapter 7.2 --- Example II --- p.61
Chapter 8. --- Conclusion --- p.65
Appendix --- p.67
Reference --- p.69

Chau Tak Wai.
Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2003.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 96-100).
Abstracts in English and Chinese.
Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1
Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.5
Chapter 2.1 --- Pioneering Work --- p.5
Chapter 2.2 --- Collective Household Consumption --- p.8
Chapter 2.3 --- Household Production --- p.16
Chapter 2.4 --- Tests between Unitary Model and Collective Model --- p.17
Chapter 2.5 --- Distribution Factors in Collective Labor Supply --- p.19
Chapter 2.6 --- Identification of Spousal Leisure --- p.20
Chapter 2.7 --- Plan of the thesis --- p.21
Chapter 3 --- Data Descriptions --- p.23
Chapter 3.1 --- Data Collection Process --- p.23
Chapter 3.2 --- Data Characteristics --- p.24
Chapter 4 --- Individual Wage and Labor Supply Equations --- p.30
Chapter 4.1 --- Individual Wage Equations --- p.30
Chapter 4.2 --- Individual Labor Supply Equation --- p.36
Chapter 4.3 --- Conclusion --- p.43
Chapter 5 --- Collective Household Labor Supply --- p.46
Chapter 5.1 --- Theoretical Model --- p.47
Chapter 5.2 --- Parametric Specification --- p.53
Chapter 5.3 --- Data and Empirical Results --- p.56
Chapter 5.4 --- Conclusion --- p.64
Chapter 6 --- Identification of Independent and Spousal Leisure --- p.66
Chapter 6.1 --- Theoretical Model --- p.67
Chapter 6.2 --- Parametric Specification --- p.78
Chapter 6.3 --- Data and Empirical Results --- p.82
Chapter 6.4 --- Conclusion --- p.91
Chapter 7 --- Conclusion --- p.93
References --- p.96
Tables and Appendices --- p.101

My dissertation research is motivated by the growing participation of African women in migration streams long dominated by men. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative evidence from my field research on the rural-urban migration of women in Ghana, I explore the role of social norms in shaping migration and remittance behavior in developing countries. Existing studies of the impact of migrant remittances on intra-household allocation are based on datasets that assume that remittances flow to a unified household, in which the household head receives remittances and makes decisions about their use. In contrast, this study makes use of a unique dataset generated during my field research that provides detailed information not only on migration, remittances and household expenditures, but also on the identities of the remitters and recipients of remittances in 181 rural households in northern Ghana. The study also draws on in-depth interviews with migrants, household and community members to understand how social norms influence migration and remittance behavior. I find that gendered social norms play an important role in migration and remittance decisions, so that gender becomes an important determinant of who migrates and who sends remittances, to whom, and why. In particular, I find that female migrants often direct their remittances to other women, thereby creating female-centered networks of remittance flows within the household. To determine the effect of this on intra-household resource allocation, I analyze the impact of remittances from female migrants on education expenditure. I find that migrant households in which women are the primary remitter or recipient of remittances spend significantly more on education per child of school-going age than do other migrant households. By taking an intra-household approach to the analysis of migration and remittances that emphasizes the role of gendered social norms in migration and remittance decisions, this research contributes to the growing body of knowledge of how gender shapes migration outcomes. More importantly, by drawing attention to the positive development outcomes that could result from the migration of women, this research strengthens the case for formulating policies to improve the working and living conditions of women migrants around the world.

碩士
國立暨南國際大學
經濟學系
87
The main purpose of this study is to test the hypothesis of the altruistically-linked relationship between the male and female heads of the household unit by utilizing the household micro data. Predicted by the altruistically linked model, if there exists altruistically linked relationship within the household, the household's demand would depend solely on the household's total resources. Which is to say, that we are interested in finding out that whether the income distribution of the household members would affect the distribution of consumption modes of the household members. As indicated by the empirical results, in additional to total income of the household, we find out that, at lease one of the spouses' income effect is significantly different from zero; whether we use the ordinary lease square or the two-stage least square models. The result suggests that the final consumption of the household would be discrepant due to the different resource allocations of the household members; the behavior of the male and female household heads of the Taiwanese families does not support the hypothesis of the strictly theoretical altruistically -linked model.

This dissertation includes three papers that address various aspects of the economics of labour and the family. The dissertation integrates the discussion on the following issues: (1) the allocation of housework and childcare in Canadian two-earner households (2) the effect of family policy reform on time allocation and labour supply in two-parent families (3) effect of anticipated divorce and divorce duration on male and female labour supply. The first paper Time Allocation Gender Gap in Native-born and Foreign-born Families in Canada focuses on the difference between the housework and childcare share produced by foreign-born husbands compared to Canadian-born husbands. This empirical analysis employs the data from the Canadian General Social Survey. The results show that foreign-born husbands have a lower share of housework and childcare compared to their Canadian-born counterparts. The second paper The effect of Quebec childcare policy change on the labour market outcomes and time distribution in the family analyzes the effect of the childcare policy change that took place in Quebec in 1997-2000. The results show that the introduction of “$5 per day” daycare subsidized by the Quebec government increased the labour supply of married mothers and also affected the allocation of time husbands and wives spend on housework and childcare. The data from this project were drawn from 1996 and 2001 Canadian Census. The third paper Labour supply of Australian men and women before and after divorce studies the changes in the labour supply of men and women before and after divorce. The data for empirical analysis employs 12 waves of Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (HILDA). The outcome suggests that men and women do not change labour participation and weekly working hours in anticipation of divorce. Women increase labour force participation and weekly hours worked as a result of divorce. Men’s labour supply does not change in response to divorce.

碩士
國立中央大學
產業經濟研究所
104
The purpose of this research is to investigate the cost of children underlying the consideration of household resource sharing. On research uses the data of The Survey of Family Income and Expenditure collected by the Accounting & Statistics of Executive Yuan during the year of 1981-1993 and 2001-2013. The empirical results show that (1) the resource shared by the husband are more than those shared by the wife. (2) The allocation of resource between husband and wife increase unequally to the number of children. (3) The resource allocated to parents decrease at the first children significantly. Furthermore, the results on the allocation of cost of child indicated that (1) the average yearly expenditures on eldest son is between $117,654 and $132,657. (2) Marginal costs of children is decreasing for raising more children. (3) The costs of children have great gap between the urban and the non-urban.