Previous literature has established that unilateral divorce laws may reduce female household work. As shown by Stevenson (2007), unilateral divorce laws may affect overall marital investment. In addition, if unilateral divorce has differential costs by gender, then unilateral divorce may impact...

Reforms that reduce alimony can affect married couples in two different ways. First, reduced alimony lowers the bargaining power of the payee, usually the wife. Second, reduced alimony lowers the incentives of wives to engage in the traditional male breadwinner model of household specialization....

This paper examines the effects of reforms that reduced alimony on matching in the marriage market. Recent literature indicates that divorce law changes which reduce commitment or income-sharing upon separation will lead to an increase in assortative matching, as women forgo specialization which...

Using Difference-in-Differences models, we estimate the impact of an exogenous increase in income on the incidence and intensity of intimate partner violence (IPV). Using National Crime Victimization Survey data from 1992 to 2000, we exploit time and family-size variation in the Earned Income...

Using Difference-in-Differences models and event-study analysis, we estimate the impact of an exogenous increase in income on the incidence and intensity of intimate partner violence (IPV). Using National Crime Victimization Survey data from 1992 to 2000, we exploit time and family-size...

We study the effect of a policy change that exogenously shifted bargaining power from mothers to fathers on intimate partner violence. We exploit a quasi-natural experiment based on a series of reforms in Spain that shifted the custody decision from being unilaterally determined by the mother to...

This paper examines the effect of economic incentives generated by U.S. divorce and custody law on a range of child health and human capital measures. State laws vary widely in the treatment of child support under joint custody. While some states require no child support in joint custody cases,...