Alimony Rights and Intrahousehold Allocation of Resources: Evidence from Brazil
研究巴西将赡养费权利和义务扩展至同居伴侣后，女性在家庭中的议价能力增强，进而影响女性工作时长和子女教育投资，表明家庭政策需考虑家庭内部偏好异质性。
Can family policy affect well-being of individuals without altering the resources available to their families? This article examines the extension of alimony rights and obligations to cohabiting couples in Brazil. For women in intact relationships, alimony rights upon dissolution should improve outside options, strengthening their negotiating positions, and increasing their influence over intrahousehold allocation of resources. Robust econometric evidence indicates that more decision power in the hands of women impacts hours worked by female adults and investments in the education of children. This suggests that family policy and models of family decision making should take intrahousehold heterogeneity of preferences into account. Copyright 2006 The Author. Journal compilation Royal Economic Society 2006.