Learning in the Household / John J. Conlon, Malavika Mani, Gautam Rao, Matthew W. Ridley, Frank Schilbach.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Conlon, John J.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Mani, Malavika.

Rao, Gautam.

Ridley, Matthew W.

Schilbach, Frank.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w28844.

NBER working paper series no. w28844

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2021.

Summary:

We study social learning between spouses using an experiment in Chennai, India. We vary whether individuals discover information themselves or must instead learn what their spouse discovered via a discussion. Women treat their 'own' and their husband's information the same. In sharp contrast, men's beliefs respond less than half as much to information that was discovered by their wife. This is not due to a lack of communication: husbands put less weight on their wife's signals even when perfectly informed of them. In a second experiment, when paired with mixed- and same-gender strangers, both men and women heavily discount their teammate's information relative to their own. We conclude that people have a tendency to underweight others' information relative to their own. The marital context creates a countervailing force for women, resulting in a gender difference in learning (only) in the household.

Notes:

Print version record

May 2021.