INCHER Colloquium: "The value of decision rights within the household: Experimental evidence from Colombia".

"The value of decision rights within the household: Experimental evidence from Colombia" (with Natalia Cantet, Marcela Ibanez, Tatiana Orozco-Garcia, Gerhard Riener)
This study examines the intra-household decision-making process and investigates individuals' motivations to demand agency. We design an economic experiment that allows us to disentangle three potential motives behind the value of agency: a strive for power, a demand for freedom, and a desire for non-interference. We implemented this experiment in a rural area of Colombia. We find that agency has an intrinsic value and that men and women are willing to buy decision rights even though the choices of the partners would lead to identical outcomes. However, there are marked gender differences. Women are less likely to purchase decision rights when interacting with strangers than with their spouses. Men, on the other hand, pay more to acquire decision rights over their wives than with strangers. This behavior is associated with a preference for freedom and power. Our results suggest that providing women with access to income-generation opportunities will not necessarily translate into higher levels of household decision-making.

Lecturer: Professor Dr. Marcela Ibañez Diaz
Research Centre "Poverty, Equity and Growth in Developing Countries", Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

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