The Impact of Divorce Laws on Marriage-Specific Capital

Betsey Stevenson ()

Journal of Labor Economics, 2007, vol. 25, pages 75-94

Abstract: This article considers how divorce law alters the incentives for couples to invest in their marriage, focusing on the impact of unilateral divorce laws on investments in new marriages. Differences across states between 1970 and 1980 provide useful quasi-experimental variation with which to consider incentives to invest in several types of marriage-specific capital: spouse’s education, children, household specialization, and home ownership. I find that adoption of unilateral divorce—regardless of the prevailing property-division laws—reduces investment in all types of marriage-specific capital considered except home ownership. In contrast, results for home ownership depend on the underlying property division laws.

Date: 2007
View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?id=doi:10.1086/508732 (text/html)

Related works:
Working Paper: The impact of divorce laws on marriage-specific capital (2006)
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: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:jlabec:v:25:y:2007:p:75-94

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JOLE/order1.html

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Labor Economics is edited by Derek A. Neal

More articles in Journal of Labor Economics from University of Chicago Press
Address: The University of Chicago Press, Journals Division, P.O. Box 37005 Chicago, IL 60637
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().