9422886 Empirical studies of consumer demand, labor supply and household production are commonly based on the premise that families behave as though they are single individuals. However, a growing number of studies have concluded that families should be modeled as the outcome of the interaction between household members with diverse preferences and resources. This project derives and tests the implications of the assumption made by virtually all models of the household that intra-family allocation is efficient. The project contains three components, concerned respectively with the economic organization of families, the market environment within which African households live, and the possible existence of community mechanisms which internalize local environmental and learning externalities in sub-Saharan Africa. Within many African households, agricultural production is carried out simultaneously on many plots controlled by different members of the household. This is an ideal environment for examining the internal organization of families, because efficiency implies that variable factors should be allocated efficiently across these plots. Preliminary results base don Burkina Faso data indicate that plots controlled by women are farmed much less intensively than similar plots within the household planted with the same crop in the same year, but controlled by men. These results, if confirmed, contradict the efficiency of resource allocation of the household. This project extends this methodology to a variety of other African contexts and examines the causes of the violation of efficiency. Theoretical research is required to establish the classes of models of the household consistent with the pattern of empirical violations of efficiency. This project also studies the existence of community mechanisms which provide incentives for individuals to engage in agricultural experimentation and internalize local environmental externalities. The current project is for short-term preliminary fieldwork in Ghana that will permit the design of the survey that will be used for extensive survey-based field research in Ghana.
