When do we know that the rule of law has failed or been corrupted? Who can we point to as corrupting legal order or the rule of law when most of the parties appear to be one-shotters? One shot players lack the ability to quickly master and more importantly conquer sophisticated legal labyrinths...

We assess comprehensively how incomes, employment, housing, mental health and life satisfaction change following a partnership dissolution, using data from 18 waves of BHPS. We confirm that women and children see living standards decline by more than men, on average, upon separation, but find...

Empirical research has shown that public policy such as tax and transfer programs have had a deleterious effect on marital stability. This study analyzes the cost to individuals of various aspects of the marriage penalty tax (MPT) and thereby how it discourages marriage and how it harms both...

Many researchers have concluded that, in surveys, divorced persons often fail to report accurate marital information. In this article, I revisit this issue using a new source of data — surveys exactly matched to Social Security data. I find that divorced persons frequently misreport their...

This paper examines how marital and fertility patterns have changed along racial and educational lines for men and women. Historically, women with more education have been the least likely to marry and have children, but this marriage gap has eroded as the returns to marriage have changed....

Dominant development policy approaches recommend women's employment on the grounds that it facilitates their empowerment, which in turn is believed to be instrumental in enhancing women's well-being. However, empirical work on the relationship between women's employment status and their...

We use elementary game-theoretical concepts to compare domestic equilibria with and without marriage. In particular, we examine the effects of marriage legislation, matrimonial property regime, and divorce court sentencing practice, on the decision to marry, and on the choice of game conditional...

In order to credibly sell legitimate children to their spouse, women must forego more attractive mating opportunities. This paper derives the implications of this observation for the pattern of matching in marriage markets, the dynamics of human capital accumulation, and the evolution of the...

We develop a two-sided matching model with positive sorting, divorce and remarriage. Match quality for each couple is revealed ex post and those with poor draws divorce. Competition determines lifetime expected utilities but per-period utilities depend on the laws that govern the distribution of...

We develop a collective household model with spousal matching in which there exists marital gains to assortative matching and marriage quality for each couple is revealed ex post. Changes in alimony laws are shown to affect existing couples and couples-to-be differently. For existing couples,...