Publications

“Poor and wealthy hand-to-mouth households in Belgium” Published, Review of Economics of the Household, November 2023
with Laurens Cherchye , Thomas Demuynck , Bram De Rock , Geoffrey Minne, Maite De Sola Perea and Frederic Vermeulen

Abstract

We identify the population shares of poor hand-to-mouth households, wealthy hand-to-mouth households and non hand-to-mouth households in Belgium. We apply the methodology proposed by Kaplan & Violante (2014) and Kaplan et al., (2014) to the Belgian component of the Household Finance and Consumption Survey. We find that the fraction of hand-to-mouth households in Belgium is substantial and predominantly consists of wealthy hand-to-mouth households. We also compare the observable characteristics and marginal propensities to consume (MPCs) of the three household types. Belgian wealthy hand-to-mouth households have characteristics that resemble those of the non hand-to-mouth households, while their MPCs are often more similar to those of the poor hand-to-mouth households. This pleads for giving a unique place to each type of household when evaluating the effects of fiscal policy

Working papers

“Housing Wealth, Marital Stability and Labor Supply: an Intertemporal Analysis” (submitted)
with Bram De Rock and Tom Potoms

Abstract

We study how house price shocks affect marital stability and household labor supply. We address this question using a dynamic collective household model with limited commitment. We find that positive house price shocks increase the divorce rate, and that leverage ratios such as loan-to-income (LTI) and loan-to-value (LTV) determine the transmission of house price shocks on divorce. Given its importance, we then analyze a tightening of the credit market through the LTI-limit. We show that neglecting the divorce and intra-household bargaining channels significantly biases the individual welfare effects of such policies.

“Personality traits, the marriage market, and household behavior”
with Gastón P. Fernández

Abstract

We develop an empirical framework to analyze the dynamic effect of personality traits in marriage market patterns and intrahousehold decisions. We exploit detailed information at the individual level from the HILDA survey about consumption, labor supply, time use, and personality traits (as measured by the Big Five). First, we document that personality types are related to marital and divorce patterns, time allocated to both market and non-market labor activities, and the evolution of earn ings. To rationalize these empirical facts, we build a life-cycle model that integrates endogenous household formation and collective household choices under limited commitment. Our framework allows personality to affect both wage processes and individual preferences. In the latter, personality traits enter indirectly through household production and the utility of marriage (match quality). We use the estimates of our model to conduct counterfactuals associated with intrahousehold behavior.

Work in Progress

“Fertility and Parental Careers: How Beliefs Shape Intra-household Choices” (draft soon)

Abstract

Standard collective models of household behavior assume that spouses hold accurate beliefs about the stability of their marriage and, by implication, about the insurance their union provides. We test this assumption with new survey data and show that divorce risk is systematically mispriced. Embedding these distorted beliefs in a calibrated limited-commitment model shows that optimism acts like underpriced insurance: women who understate divorce risk advance childbearing, interrupt early-career work, and lose lifetime earnings, while men are largely unaffected. We then evaluate a self-financed divorce-contingent insurance scheme, which corrects belief-driven mispricing: couples delay first births by about one year without reducing completed fertility, divorce rates remain stable, post-divorce consumption gaps halve, and early-career market hours rise.

“Raising children: Marriage, preferences over childcare, and gender inequality”
(Data collection soon to begin)

with Bram De Rock, Sarah Rosenberg, and Roel van Veldhuizen

Abstract