%0 Journal Article
%@ 0769-489X
%A Beblo, Miriam
%A Beninger, Denis
%A Cochard, François
%A Couprie, Hélène
%A Hopfensitz, Astrid
%D 2015
%F publications:16509
%J Annales d'Économie et de Statistique
%N 117-118
%P 233-252
%R 10.15609/annaeconstat2009.117-118.233
%T Efficiency-Equality Trade-off within French and German Couples – A Comparative Experimental Study
%U https://publications.ut-capitole.fr/id/eprint/16509/
%X We present the results of an experiment measuring social preferences within couples in a context where intra-household pay-off inequality can be reduced at the cost of diminishing household income. We measure social norms regarding this efficiency-equality trade-off and implement a cross-country comparison between France and Germany. In particular, we show that German households are more inequality averse and are thus less efficient than French households. A decomposition of this difference reveals that approximately 40% is driven by diverging sample compositions in the two countries, while 60% of the initial French/German difference remains unexplained. Beliefs differ significantly from observed behavior in both countries. Efficient choices are overestimated in the German sample and underestimated in the French.