Modern marriage markets display increasing turnover, with less marriage but more divorce and remarriage. As a consequence, a large number of children live in single-parent and step-parent households. We summarize here a general equilibrium approach that allows welfare evaluations. In the absence...

From the end of the second century CE, Judaism enforced a religious norm requiring fathers to educate their sons. We present evidence supporting our thesis that this change had a major influence on Jewish economic and demographic history. First, the high individual and community cost of...