Marital stability with committed couples: A revealed preference analysis

Mikhail Freer and Khushboo Surana

Games and Economic Behavior, 2025, vol. 150, issue C, 131-159

Abstract: We present a revealed preference characterization of marital stability where some couples are committed. A couple is committed if they can divorce only with mutual consent. We provide theoretical insights into the potential of the characterization for identifying intrahousehold consumption patterns. We demonstrate that without price variation for private goods among potential couples, intrahousehold resource allocations can only be identified for non-committed couples. We conduct simulations using Dutch household data to support our theoretical findings. Our results show that with price variation, the empirical implications of marital stability allow for the identification of household consumption allocations for both committed and non-committed couples.

Keywords: Household consumption; Marital stability; Commitment; Revealed preferences; Intrahousehold allocation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C14 C78 D11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Working Paper: Marital Stability With Committed Couples: A Revealed Preference Analysis (2024)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:150:y:2025:i:c:p:131-159

DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2024.11.018

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