Permitting the Compensation of Birth Mothers for Adoption Expenses and its Impact on Adoptions

Wallace Cullen T. ()
Additional contact information
Wallace Cullen T.: Department of Economics and Finance, Georgia College & State University, Milledgeville, GA, USA

The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 2022, vol. 22, issue 3, 573-600

Abstract: For seven decades, states have passed legislation to regulate the exchange of funds in the adoption process by either enabling or prohibiting prospective adoptive parents from compensating a matched birth mother for adoption-related expenses. In 1940, no state codes contained provisions for adoption compensation. By the mid-1980s, nearly half of states had passed such legislation, and today, 45 states have such laws. Leveraging this variation in state adoption laws governing compensation, I estimate how the allowance of monetary transfers affects the number of infant adoptions in a two-stage difference-in-differences framework. Results indicate that the number of private infant adoptions is not affected by the passage of such laws, and estimates are robust across multiple specifications. The findings suggesting that non-fiscal concerns or uncertainty in the matching process may overshadow potential compensation of medical, legal, or living expenses.

Keywords: infant adoptions; adoption expenses; family policy; adoption policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H73 J13 K36 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/bejeap-2022-0010 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

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:bpj:bejeap:v:22:y:2022:i:3:p:573-600:n:1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/bejeap/html

DOI: 10.1515/bejeap-2022-0010

Access Statistics for this article

The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy is currently edited by Hendrik Jürges and Sandra Ludwig

More articles in The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().