Is Ignorance Bliss? The Effect of Asymmetric Information between Spouses on Intra-household Allocations

We conducted a field experiment in Southern Ghana to test the effect of asymmetric information on intrahousehold allocation. A lottery was conducted, where prizes were distributed in public and in private. The results indicate that asymmetric information over windfalls has a differential effect on o...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Castilla, Carolina, Walker, Thomas
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	en_US
Published:	American Economic Association 2014
Subjects:	household production intrahousehold allocation asymmetric and private information microeconomic analyses economic development
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/17929

id	okr-10986-17929
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-179292021-04-23T14:03:41Z Is Ignorance Bliss? The Effect of Asymmetric Information between Spouses on Intra-household Allocations Castilla, Carolina Walker, Thomas household production intrahousehold allocation asymmetric and private information microeconomic analyses economic development We conducted a field experiment in Southern Ghana to test the effect of asymmetric information on intrahousehold allocation. A lottery was conducted, where prizes were distributed in public and in private. The results indicate that asymmetric information over windfalls has a differential effect on observable and concealable expenses, consistent with hiding. Husbands' public windfalls increase investment in assets and social capital, while there is no such effect when wives win. Private windfalls of both spouses are committed to cash (wives) or in-kind gifts (husband) which are either difficult to monitor or to reverse if discovered by the other spouse. 2014-04-21T20:34:13Z 2014-04-21T20:34:13Z 2013-05 Journal Article American Economic Review 0002-8282 10.1257/aer.103.3.263 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/17929 en_US CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo American Economic Association American Economic Association Publications & Research :: Journal Article Ghana
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	en_US
topic	household production intrahousehold allocation asymmetric and private information microeconomic analyses economic development
spellingShingle	household production intrahousehold allocation asymmetric and private information microeconomic analyses economic development Castilla, Carolina Walker, Thomas Is Ignorance Bliss? The Effect of Asymmetric Information between Spouses on Intra-household Allocations
geographic_facet	Ghana
description	We conducted a field experiment in Southern Ghana to test the effect of asymmetric information on intrahousehold allocation. A lottery was conducted, where prizes were distributed in public and in private. The results indicate that asymmetric information over windfalls has a differential effect on observable and concealable expenses, consistent with hiding. Husbands' public windfalls increase investment in assets and social capital, while there is no such effect when wives win. Private windfalls of both spouses are committed to cash (wives) or in-kind gifts (husband) which are either difficult to monitor or to reverse if discovered by the other spouse.
format	Journal Article
author	Castilla, Carolina Walker, Thomas
author_facet	Castilla, Carolina Walker, Thomas
author_sort	Castilla, Carolina
title	Is Ignorance Bliss? The Effect of Asymmetric Information between Spouses on Intra-household Allocations
title_short	Is Ignorance Bliss? The Effect of Asymmetric Information between Spouses on Intra-household Allocations
title_full	Is Ignorance Bliss? The Effect of Asymmetric Information between Spouses on Intra-household Allocations
title_fullStr	Is Ignorance Bliss? The Effect of Asymmetric Information between Spouses on Intra-household Allocations
title_full_unstemmed	Is Ignorance Bliss? The Effect of Asymmetric Information between Spouses on Intra-household Allocations
title_sort	is ignorance bliss? the effect of asymmetric information between spouses on intra-household allocations
publisher	American Economic Association
publishDate	2014
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/17929
_version_	1764438721517584384

Is Ignorance Bliss? The Effect of Asymmetric Information between Spouses on Intra-household Allocations

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