To gain a better understanding of intrahousehold bargaining processes, surveys increasingly collect data from co-heads individually. Answers provided by spouses on the same set of questions often differ substantially, alternately attributed to measurement error, poor framing within the cultural context that leads to systematic biases, or other common challenges associated with surveys. However, recent studies suggest that differences in responses from co-heads may also be caused by spouses strategically hiding information from each other. Using detailed data on a large sample of monogamous smallholder maize-farming households in eastern Uganda, we document response patterns from household co-heads related to decision-making, labor time, and sales of farm output. We ask each spouse questions about themselves, but also about their spouse, and compare responses. We also implement two interventions to test if such spousal disagreement in reporting can be reduced by increasing cooperation between spouses and reducing information asymmetries.

We study repeated water allocation decisions among small scale irrigation users in Tanzania. In a treatment replicating water scarcity conditions, convexities in production make that substantial efficiency gains can be obtained by deviating from equal sharing, leading to an equity-efficiency trade-off. In a repeated game setting, it becomes possible to reconcile efficiency with equity by rotating the person who receives the largest share, but such a strategy requires a longer run perspective. Correlating experimental data from an irrigation game with individual time preference data, we find that less patient irrigators are less likely to use a rotation strategy.

Does water scarcity induce conflict? And who would engage in a water scarcity conflict? In this paper we look for evidence of the relation between water scarcity and conflictive behavior. With a framed field experiment conducted with smallholder irrigators from semi-arid Tanzania that replicates appropriation from an occasionally scarce common water flow we assess what type of water users is more inclined to react in conflictive way to scarcity. On average, water scarcity induces selfish appropriation behavior in the experiment which is regarded as conflictive in the Tanzanian irrigator communities where strong non-competition norms regulate irrigation water distribution. But not all react to water scarcity in the same way. Poor, marginalized, dissocialized irrigators with low human capital and with higher stakes are most likely to react with conflictive appropriation behavior to water scarcity. Viewed from a political ecology perspective we conclude that circumstances in Tanzania are conducive to resource scarcity conflicts. Water scarcity and water values are increasing, and water governance institutions entail exclusionary elements. Moreover, a higher likelihood to react in a conflictive way to water scarcity coincides with real economic and political inequalities which could form a basis for mobilization for more violent ways of competing for scarce resources.