Collateralized Marriage

Jeanne Lafortune and Corinne Low

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2023, vol. 15, issue 4, 252-91

Abstract: Marriage rates have become increasingly stratified by homeownership. We investigate this in a household model where investments in public goods reduce future earnings and, thus, divorce risk creates inefficiencies. Access to a joint savings technology, like a house, collateralizes marriage, providing insurance to the lower-earning partner and increasing specialization, public goods, and value from marriage. We use idiosyncratic variation in housing prices to show that homeownership access indeed leads to greater specialization. The model also predicts that policies that erode the marriage contract in other ways will make wealth a more important determinant of marriage, which we confirm empirically.

JEL-codes: D12 D86 G51 H41 J12 R31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20210614 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20210614.appx (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20210614.ds (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Collateralized Marriage (2021)
Working Paper: Collateralized Marriage (2020)
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:aea:aejapp:v:15:y:2023:i:4:p:252-91

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

DOI: 10.1257/app.20210614

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics is currently edited by Alexandre Mas

More articles in American Economic Journal: Applied Economics from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().