Did Unilateral Divorce Laws Raise Divorce Rates? A Reconciliation and New Results

Justin Wolfers

American Economic Review, 2006, vol. 96, issue 5, 1802-1820

Abstract: Applying the Coase Theorem to marital bargaining suggests that shifting from consent to unilateral divorce laws will not affect divorce rates. I show that existing evidence suggesting large effects of divorce laws on divorce rates reflect a failure to explicitly model the dynamic response of divorce rates to a shock to the legal regime. When accounting for these dynamics, I find that unilateral divorce spiked following the adoption of unilateral divorce laws, but that this rise largely reversed itself within a decade. Overall, these changes in family law explain very little of the rise in divorce over the past half-century. (JEL C78, J12)

Date: 2006
Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.96.5.1802
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Working Paper: Did Unilateral Divorce Laws Raise Divorce Rates? A Reconciliation and New Results (2003)
Working Paper: Did Unilateral Divorce Laws Raise Divorce Rates? A Reconciliation and New Results (2003)
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