"This paper investigates the response of young people in the United States to state laws dictating the minimum age at which individuals could marry, with and without parental consent. We use variation across states and over time to document behavioral responses to laws governing the age of...

The practice of early marriage for women is prevalent in developing countries around the world today, and is believed to cause significant disruption in their accumulation of human capital. This paper develops an overlapping generations model of the marriage market to explain how the practice...