Couples and Household Finance

Most financial decisions are made by households, not individuals, and households are not unitary decision-makers. Couples pool money or keep it separate, divide financial labour, hide purchases from each other, and specialise so heavily that one partner may not know where the accounts are.

The pooling work asks whether the structure of a couple's accounts affects the relationship itself. Couples who pool report higher relationship satisfaction, and the effect survives controls that rule out the obvious reverse explanation that happier couples merge money.

A related line studies financial infidelity — spending a partner would disapprove of, and concealing it. Measuring it reliably turned out to be the hard part, and the resulting scale predicts a wide range of consumption behaviour, from discreet payment methods to unmarked packaging.