A United Family Prospers: Intrahousehold Economic Discord, Household Income and Child Growth in Burkina Faso

We conduct a lab-in-the-field experiment in rural Burkina Faso eliciting subjective exchange rates of the spouses’ payoff to one’s own payoff for those in monogamous and polygamous relationships. These exchange rates are grounded in theoretical household bargaining models. From these experimental exchange rates, we can infer that while some households’ consumption decisions align with unitary or collective models, others are more accurately described by a noncooperative model. The existence of this heterogeneity is consistent with correlation patterns between exchange rates and survey responses related to household accounts, individual control, and consumption preferences. Deviations from parity in these exchange rates, which we define as an indicator of intrahousehold economic discord, are associated with slower early childhood growth outcomes. This discord measure is also associated with lower total household income, which is consistent with a non-separable production-consumption model with a noncooperative production stage. These experimental results, combined with a standard theoretical model, suggest that in households characterized by economic discord, intrahousehold consumption inefficiency translates into productive inefficiency, hampering health and economic outcomes.