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Nonparametric Analysis of Household Labor Supply: Goodness of Fit and Power of the Unitary and the Collective Model

The Review of Economics and Statistics 2008 90(2), 267-274
We compare the empirical performance of unitary and collective labor supply models, using representative data from the Dutch DNB Household Survey. We conduct a nonparametric analysis that avoids the distortive impact of an erroneously specified functional form for the preferences and/or the intrahousehold bargaining process. Our analysis focuses on the goodness of fit of the two behavioral models. To guarantee a fair comparison, we complement this goodness-of-fit analysis with a power analysis. Our results strongly favor the collective approach to modeling the behavior of multiperson households.