Marriage Markets and Assortative Mating with Household Public Goods: Theoretical Results and Empirical Implications

David Lam

Journal of Human Resources, 1988, vol. 23, issue 4, 462-487

Abstract: This paper analyzes marriage market equilibria when the gains from marriage result from joint consumption of household public goods. Assuming transferable utility within marriage, the paper proves that marriage markets will be characterized by positive assortative mating on wealth when spouses differ only in endowments and the gains to marriage result only from public goods. When spouses differ in wages and household public goods are produced at home, the results imply offsetting effects, with public good economies creating an incentive for positive assortative mating on wages and gains from specialization creating an incentive for negative assortative mating on wages. The results help explain the persistent lack of empirical support for Becker's prediction of negative assortative mating on wages, and have implications for empirical analysis of all joint living arrangement decisions.

Date: 1988
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (216)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/145809
A subscription is required to access pdf files. Pay per article is available.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uwp:jhriss:v:23:y:1988:i:4:p:462-487

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Human Resources from University of Wisconsin Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().