This paper seeks to understand the role played by immigrant ethnic composition in the process of women’s suffrage in the United States. Any theory of the extension of voting rights to women must explain why native men voted to extend the franchise to women. In this paper, we consider what we...

I examine John Maynard Keynes' struggle with the doctrine of the classical forced saving during the period 1924-1936 from when he worked on A Treatise on Money to the completion of his General Theory. The forced saving notion has been developed as a key mechanism of how monetary expansion...

Positive assortative matching in terms of traits like ethnicity, race and personality has been prevalent in marital formation. One possible explanation for this is that husbands and wives in endogamous marriages have complementary skills and tastes that increase marital surplus. This paper aims...

The unilateral divorce reform in the 1970's has been accompanied by a secular decline in marriage. This paper investigates how the homemaking provision in divorce law that gives recognition to homemakers' contribution during marriage in divorce property division affects marital formation and...

Under the tender years doctrine in effect until the 1970’s, custody was virtually always awarded to the mother upon divorce. Gender-neutral custody laws introduced beginning in the 1970’s provided married fathers, in principle, equal rights to custody. Subsequent marriage-neutral...

I examine John Maynard Keynes’ struggle with the doctrine of the classical forced saving during the period 1924-1936 from when he worked on A Treatise on Money to the completion of his General Theory. The forced saving notion has been developed as a key mechanism of how monetary expansion...

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) was enacted under Clinton administration to strengthen the child support system and promote parental responsibility through tougher enforcement and paternity establishment. Low-income fathers are particularly...

I examine whether the family cap policy that reduces or eliminates incremental welfare benefits for additional births born to mothers already on welfare would affect both the quantity and quality of births in terms of birthweight. The evidence suggests that the family cap policy has not only...

A variety of states in the United States have adopted the "homemaking provision" in their divorce laws since the 1980's. The provision requires judges to recognize homemakers' contribution to their marriages in dividing marital properties at divorce. I model the marital decisions of couples as a...

Since the end of the 1990s, increasingly more states in the US have proposed introducing or lengthening the separation/waiting periods required for divorce as a policy tool to strengthen marriage and discourage divorce. I use the variation in the timing of states' implementation of shortened...