Do men and women estimate property values differently?

Abstract

Wealth data are typically obtained by asking respondents about the value of their key assets. Yet, what if the answers to valuation questions vary systematically depending on who is interviewed? Using nationally representative data from Ghana and Ecuador and for the state of Karnataka, India, we analyze whether men and women provide different responses to questions about the monetary value of their home. Using a DFL decomposition across the full sample and comparing the responses of husbands and wives in our couple sample, we find that overall, the distribution of monetary values reported by women tends to be narrower than that reported by men. This finding has implications both for data collection efforts and for measures of the gender wealth gap.