The divorced financial spheres of beninese spouses

Philippe LeMay-Boucher, Olivier Dagnelie

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This paper exploits original data collected in Benin, using both income and expenditure at the individual level. We provide evidence suggesting that husbands and wives do not pool their respective incomes and thus do not make expenditure decisions on the basis of a common budget. As corroborated by numerous anthropological accounts from West Africa, husband and wife are secretive and individually allocate their personal income to private and public goods. We describe a non-cooperative context that enables us to predict the determinants of spouses' patterns of consumption. Our empirical results confirm that spouses' financial spheres are, to an extent, disconnected.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)46-58
Number of pages13
JournalJournal of International Development
Volume26
Issue number1
Early online date14 May 2012
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2014

Keywords

  • Benin
  • Gender
  • Intra-household allocations

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