Low sex ratios are often equated with unfavorable marriage prospects for women, but in France after World War 1, the marriage probability of single females rose 50%, despite a massive drop in the male/female ratio. We conjecture that the war-time birth-rate bust induced an abnormal postwar...

Service was one of the main characteristics of the European Marriage Pattern in pre-industrial western Europe. During this stage of the life cycle adolescents could acquire the material assets and skills that were required to marry and start an independent household. Whilst in service, servants...

High unemployment in many OECD countries is often attributed, at least in part, to the generosity and long duration of unemployment compensation. It is therefore instructive to examine a country where high unemployment exists despite the near complete absence of an unemployment insurance system....

High unemployment in many OECD countries is often attributed, at least in part, to the generosity and long duration of unemployment compensation. It is therefore instructive to examine a country where high unemployment exists despite the near complete absence of an unemployment insurance system....

This paper presents a simultaneous model for the joint decisions of working, studying and leaving the parental household by young people in Spain. Using cross-section data from the 1990-1991 Encuesta de Presupuestos Familiares, the model is estimated by a two stage estimation method. Endogeneity...

We investigate the importance of economic factors in young Americans’ decisions to form and dissolve households. We adopt a search theoretic framework to analyse the decisions to: leave the parental home; form a marriage or partnership; and dissolve a marriage or partnership. We focus, in...

This study follows teens through young adulthood as they transition to independent living. We focus on a little studied issue: why some youths live in groups rather than alone or with parents. This choice is important because the size of the group has a substantial impact on the demand for...

High unemployment in many OECD countries is often attributed, at least in part, to the generosity and long duration of unemployment compensation. It is therefore instructive to examine a country where high unemployment exists despite the near complete absence of an unemployment insurance system....

Systemic risk must include the housing market, though economists have not generally focused on it. We begin construction of an agent-based model of the housing market with individual data from Washington, DC. Twenty years of success with agent-based models of mortgage prepayments give us hope...

The demographic problems in developed countries are getting more and more important. Very low fertility rates especially among skilled individuals will soon become relevant for a country's economy. Also of importance is education of children. Since there is an increasing demand for skilled...