Myself or Ourselves: An Experimental Enquiry into The Impact of Entitlements On Altruistic Choices Within a Household

Abstract

In this study, we played a household allocation game to explore the impact of economic entitlements on intra-household altruistic choices among spouses. Extra-lab experiment was used and subjects were studied under two different treatments (effort and non-effort). Subjects were to choose between “private consumption bundle” and “joint consumption bundle” under both the treatments. Our results show that women are more altruistic as most of them preferred “joint consumption bundle” over the “private consumption bundle” in both the treatments. Men, on the other hand, preferred consumption of private good specially under the “effort treatment”. These results can help policy makers to device policies targeted towards women to increase overall welfare.