The Engel curves of non-cooperative households

Abstract

We provide a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for a system of Engel curves to have been generated by a non-cooperative model of family behaviour. These conditions fully characterise the local behaviour of household-level consumption in the cross-section, i.e., as a function of total income and distribution factors. In this setting, any demand system compatible with a non-cooperative model is also compatible with a collective model, but the converse is not true. We describe how these nested conditions may be tested using standard instrumental-variables strategies.