polygyny (multiple wives). Wealth inequality naturally produces multiple wives for rich men in a standard model of the marriage … market where polygyny is not ruled out. Our model demonstrates, however, that while higher male inequality generates more … polygyny, higher female inequality produces a more monogamous equilibrium. Moreover, we derive how female inequality in the …

inequality, and analyses several explanations for this result. A causal link is established by showing that the results are … robust to the inclusion of city fixed-effects and city-specific time trends, and by using inequality in the woman’s state of … birth as a proxy for the local level of male inequality. Increasing male inequality explains about 30% of the marriage rate …