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...

Using plausibly exogenous variations in the ethnicity-specific assigned birth quotas and different fertility penalties across Chinese provinces over time, we provide new evidence for the transferable utility model by showing how China's One-Child Policy induced a significantly higher unmarried...

Using plausibly exogenous variations in the ethnicity-specific assigned birth quotas and different fertility penalties across Chinese provinces over time, we provide new evidence for the transferable utility model by showing how China's One-Child Policy induced a significantly higher unmarried...

I discuss recent books offering differing explanations for persistent U.S. poverty. Desmond (2023) argues that aid to low-income Americans is captured by more powerful market actors. I contextualize this concern as about incidence and consider both policies for changing incidence (by changing...

This paper examines the effect of the introduction of a 1982 maternity benefit program on childbearing, employment and marital stability in the former Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The program included one year of partially paid leave and a small cash payment at birth. We...

This essay is an updated, expanded and revised version of the second half of Divorce Rates, Marriage Rates, and the Problematic Persistence of Traditional Marital Roles, published in 2000 and also available on SSRN. It draws on demographic studies and comparative research to examine the...

We document the effect of unemployment insurance generosity on divorce and fertility using an identification strategy that leverages state-level changes in maximum benefits over time and comparisons across workers who have been laid off and those that have not been laid off. The results indicate...

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...

Since the 1970s almost all states have introduced a form of joint custody after divorce. We analyze the causal effect of these custody law reforms on the incidence of marriage and divorce. Our identification strategy exploits the different timing of reforms across states and the control group of...

We present a model of courtship in which the timing of marriage is affected by the cognitive dissonance between perceived norms and personal aims. We argue that as long as the family has been the main provider of social protection, marriage has been favoured by strongly felt social norms, and...