COMBINING STATED AND REVEALED PREFERENCE DATA TO CONSTRUCT AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION OF INTRAHOUSEHOLD BARGAINING

The behavior of households has traditionally been explained by assuming that a single decision maker maximizes utility over all members of the household subject to a budget constraint. This unitary model of household behavior has been questioned and compared to models that assume that household decisions are made in a bargaining process. We examine household behavior in a bargaining framework by combining stated preference information from individual members of the household with revealed preference information on the household's actual choices. The context of the decision is determining the location of family recreation vacation choice. The resulting model, based on a bargaining framework, provides information on the factors affecting bargaining power as well as information on the degree to which the decision is the result of a bargaining process