Love and money: A theoretical and empirical analysis of household sorting and inequality

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Fernández, R; Guner, N; Knowles, J
• 署名单位: New York University; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; National Bureau of Economic Research; Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); Pennsylvania State University; Pennsylvania State University - University Park; University of Pennsylvania
• 刊物名称: QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-5533
• DOI: 10.1162/0033553053327498
• 发表日期: 2005
• 页码: 273-344
• 关键词: income-distribution; public-goods; marriage; fertility; education; mobility; demand; school

摘要

This paper examines the interactions between household formation, inequality, and per capita income. We develop a model in which agents decide to become skilled or unskilled and form households. We show that the equilibrium sorting of spouses by skill type (their correlation in skills) is an increasing function of the skill premium. In the absence of perfect capital markets, the economy can converge to different steady states, depending upon initial conditions. The degree of marital sorting and wage inequality is positively correlated across steady states and negatively correlated with per capita income. We use household surveys from 34 countries to construct several measures of the skill premium and of the degree of correlation of spouses' education (marital sorting). For all our measures, we find a positive and significant relationship between the two variables. We also find that sorting and per capita GDP are negatively correlated and that greater discrimination against women leads to more sorting, in line with the predictions of our model.