This paper examines the effect of public assistance, labor market and marriage market conditions on the prevalence of single mother families across countries and over time. A multinomial logit derived from a random utility approach is estimated using individuallevel data for 14 countries. I find...

We model the consequences of parental control over choice of wives for sons, for parental incentives to educate daughters, when the marriage market exhibits competitive dowry payments and altruistic but paternalistic parents benefit from having married sons live with them. By choosing uneducated...

We model sex selection and the equilibrium sex ratio, when parents care about their child's marriage prospects. With intrinsic son preference, selection results in a male-biased sex ratio. This is inefficient, due to a marriage market congestion externality. Medical innovations that facilitate...

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...

This paper explains the existing cross-country differences in household formation rates in industrialized countries by highlighting how an individual`s probability to form a household may be affected by social norms toward the household division of labor. Because social norms are to a large...

By exploiting more than 4,500 unpublished dowry contracts written in Florence between 1242 and 1435, I am able to present the first systematic analysis of dowry trends and bequest behavior in medieval and early Renaissance Florence. I examine the effects of demographic shocks and changes in...