This paper examines husband and wife perspectives on the division of authority over agriculture-related decision-making within households in Tanzania and Mali. We develop a theoretical model of intrahousehold “accord,” defined as the level of agreement between husbands and wives over who holds authority for different decisions. We then empirically analyze husband and wife claims to authority over thirteen household farming decisions, explaining accord as a function of household characteristics and decision characteristics. We posit that lower transaction costs (in terms of negotiation and enforcement costs) make property rights over some decisions relatively more secure, resulting in greater accord over household authority for those decisions. We test our theoretical model using survey data from a stratified random sample of 3,763 households in Mali (n = 1,766) and Tanzania (n = 1,997). Cluster analysis and binary logistic regression suggest that variation in intra-household accord can be explained by both household characteristics (including individual spousal attitudes, relative spousal assets, and overall household resources) and by decision characteristics (such as whether the benefits of a given decision accrue to the individual spouse or to the household as a whole). Furthermore patterns of intra-household accord and predictors of intra-household accord both vary significantly by country (Mali versus Tanzania), but are consistent with the interpretation that cultural norms might lower decision-related transaction costs leading to efficient, if not necessarily equitable, household decision-making processes.

本文考察了坦桑尼亚和马里家庭内部农业相关决策权威划分的夫妻视角。我们发展了一个家庭内部“一致”的理论模型，定义为丈夫和妻子之间对于谁有权做出不同决定的一致程度。然后，我们实证分析了夫妻对13个家庭农业决策主张的权威，解释了一致性是家庭特征和决策特征的函数。我们假设，较低的交易成本(就谈判和执行成本而言)使某些决策的产权相对更安全，从而导致对这些决策的家庭权力达成更大的一致。我们使用马里(n = 1,766)和坦桑尼亚(n = 1,997) 3763户分层随机抽样的调查数据来检验我们的理论模型。聚类分析和二元逻辑回归表明intra-household协议的变化可以解释为两个家庭特征(包括个人婚姻态度,相对配偶的资产,和整个家庭资源)和决策特征(如是否一个给定的好处积累决定个人的配偶或家庭作为一个整体)。此外intra-household协议模式和预测intra-household协议两种差异很大的国家(马里和坦桑尼亚),但符合文化规范的解释可能会决定交易成本低导致有效,如果不一定公平,家庭决策过程。