The cost of children: May the collective approach to household behavior help?

The collective approach to household consumption behavior tries to infer fr om variables supposed to affect the general bargaining position of househol d members information on the allocation of consumptions goods and tasks amo ng them. This paper investigates the extension of previous work to the case where children may be considered as a public consumption good by the two a dult members of a household. The main question being asked is whether it is possible to retrieve from the aggregate consumption behaviour of the house hold and the relative earnings of the parents information: on the allocatio n of goods between them and children. This alternative approach to the-esti mation of the 'cost of children' is contrasted with the conventional approa ch based on a 'unitary' representation of and demographic separability assu mptions on household consumption behaviour. JEL classification: D10, J13, J 15.