Individual and couple decision behavior under risk: Evidence on the dynamics of power balance

André de Palma (1, 2) , Nathalie Picard (2, 3) , Anthony Ziegelmeyer (4)

1 ENS Cachan - École normale supérieure - Cachan
2 X-DEP-ECO - Département d'Économie de l'École Polytechnique
3 THEMA - Théorie économique, modélisation et applications
4 Strategic Interaction Group [Jena]

This paper reports results of an experiment designed to analyze the link between risky decisions made by couples and risky decisions made separately by each spouse. We estimate both the spouses and the couples' degrees of risk aversion, we assess how the risk preferences of the two spouses aggregate when they make risky decisions and we shed light on the dynamics of the decision process that takes place when couples make risky decisions. We find that, far from being fixed, the balance of power within the household is malleable. In most couples, men have, initially, more decision-making power than women but women who ultimately implement the joint decisions gain more and more power over the course of decision making.

Mots clés: Risk; Balance of power; Experiments; Household decision-making; Risk.

Domaines: Economies et finances

André de Palma, Nathalie Picard, Anthony Ziegelmeyer. Individual and couple decision behavior under risk: Evidence on the dynamics of power balance. 2009. ⟨hal-00418899⟩