The Impact of Divorce Laws on Marriage-Specific Capital

Betsey Stevenson

Journal of Labor Economics, 2007, vol. 25, issue 1, 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
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (177)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/508732 (text/html)
Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:jlabec:v:25:y:2007:p:75-94

DOI: 10.1086/508732

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Labor Economics from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().