Residential location preferences and relative power in three member households: a choice experiment

Microeconomics studies group behaviour by using the unitary model. However, there is growing evidence that \nthere can be significant differences between choices made by single individuals and those made by the same \nindividuals when choosing collectively. This study investigates the differences between individual and joint \ndecision-making in the context of residential location choice. It is widely recognized that household location \nchoices involve several members of a household with heterogeneous preferences and influence power. \nNonetheless little is known about group decision-making processes in practice. In particular, there is only scant \nevidence on how preferences differ among family members and to what extent individual preferences can be \naggregated to achieve an approximation of joint choices. The study evaluates whether there are differences in \nsingle members’ preferences. Furthermore, relative power is inferred by measuring similarity between ex ante \nsingle preferences and ex post joint choice outcomes. We also quantify the implicit bias generated by relying on \nthe unitary household approach. These issues are tested by employing a two-stage conjoint choice experiment \nadministered to a sample of 53 Italian families. This work proposes a novel extension of the commonly used \ndyadic interaction approach to consider the role of adolescents in household decision-making.