Collateralized Marriage

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Lafortune, Jeanne; Low, Corinne
• 署名单位: Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile; IZA Institute Labor Economics; University of Pennsylvania
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20210614
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 252-291
• 关键词: raise divorce rates; prenuptial agreements; gender convergence; family-law; INEQUALITY; womens; INVESTMENT; CHILDREN; welfare; time

摘要

Marriage rates have become increasingly stratified by homeown-ership. We investigate this in a household model where invest-ments in public goods reduce future earnings and, thus, divorce risk creates inefficiencies. Access to a joint savings technology, like a house, collateralizes marriage, providing insurance to the low-er-earning partner and increasing specialization, public goods, and value from marriage. We use idiosyncratic variation in hous-ing prices to show that homeownership access indeed leads to greater specialization. The model also predicts that policies that erode the marriage contract in other ways will make wealth a more important determinant of marriage, which we confirm empirically.