A New Estimator of Search Duration and Its Application to the Marriage Market

Pavel Jelnov

No 11466, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: It is well known that female age at first marriage positively correlates with male income inequality. The common interpretation of this fact is that marital search takes longer when the pool of potential mates is more unequal. This paper challenges that interpretation with a novel econometric method. I utilize the fact that the female age at first marriage was shown to be a sum of a skewed term, possibly related to search, and a normally distributed residual. I estimate search duration as the expected skewed term. I find that in the American data this term does not positively correlate with male income inequality and female education.

Keywords: marital search; marriage age; inequality; female education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 J12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2018-04
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published in: Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 2018, 80 (6) , 1089-1116

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Journal Article: A New Estimator of Search Duration and Its Application to the Marriage Market (2018)
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