Household Semi-Public Goods and the Estimation of Consumer Equivalence Scales: Some First Steps

Abstract

Models of household consumption used to estimate the relative needs of people living in different family types need to take account of economies of household size, price-like substitution effects and the allocation of consumption among the individuals of the household. No existing estimation method tackles all three of these issues in a simultaneous and transparent fashion. Partly because of this, consumption-based estimates of consumer equivalence scales have had little direct application in social and economic policies. This paper combines a household production model introduced by Lau (1985) with a Samuelson-type (1956) household welfare function to develop a consumption model which is both general and amenable to the incorporation (and testing) of a range of additional identifying information. The latter can include ‘expert judgements’ of the technology of household production (the scale economies) of different goods. A simplified version of this model is used to estimate some preliminary equivalence scales and intra-household allocations for aged couples and singles.