We present the results of an experiment measuring social preferences within couples in a context where intra-household pay-off inequality can be reduced at the cost of diminishing household income. We measure social norms regarding this efficiency-equality trade-off and implement a cross-country comparison between France and Germany. In particular, we show that German households are more inequality averse and thus less income-maximizing than French households. Decomposition reveals that diverging sample compositions in the two countries drive less than half of the difference, while over half of the initial French/German difference remains unexplained. Beliefs differ significantly from observed behavior in both countries. Incomemaximizing choices are overestimated in the German sample and underestimated in the French. JEL Codes: C71, C91, C92, D13
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