Gary Becker devotes a chapter of his Treatise on the Family to Polygamy and Monogamy in marriage markets. The inclusion of polygamy in his analysis is more than an intriguing curiosum. Although overt polygamy is rare in our own society, it is a very common mode of family organization around the...

This paper argues that the economics of the family can be much enriched by incorporating recent developments in evolutionary biology, animal behavior studies, cultural evolution, anthropology, and game theory. Evolutionary foundations of sympathy between relatives are explored. Applications of...

This paper presents a theoretical model of political support for the public provision of day care. In an economy where there are high taxes on wage income, sel sh taxpayers with no children in the day care system may favor substantial public subsidies to day care because such subsidies induce...

This paper explores the evolutionary foundations of altruism among siblings and extends the biologists kin-selection theory to a richer class of games between relatives. We show that a population will resist invasion by dominant mutant genes if individuals maximize a semi-Kantian utility...

This paper explores the workings of stratified societies in which there is pri- mogeniture and where the nobility practice monogamous marriage with a double standard of sexual fidelity. The paper models a simple stratified society and defines the reproductive values of male and female nobility...