Marriage and the City

Pieter Gautier, Michael Svarer and C. N. Teulings ()

No 1491, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Do people move to cities because of marriage market considerations? In cities singles can meet more potential partners than in rural areas. Singles are therefore prepared to pay a premium in terms of higher housing prices. Once married, the marriage market benefits disappear while the housing premium remains. We extend the model of Burdett and Coles (1997) with a distinction between efficient (cities) and less efficient (non-cities) search markets. One implication of the model is that singles are more likely to move from rural areas to cities while married couples are more likely to make the reverse movement. A second prediction of the model is that attractive singles benefit most from a dense market (i.e. from being choosy). Those predictions are tested with a unique Danish dataset.

Keywords: city; marriage; search; mobility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J12 J64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2005-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

Published - published in: Journal of Urban Economics, 2010, 67 (2), 206-218

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Related works:
Working Paper: Marriage and the City (2005)
Working Paper: Marriage and the City (2005)
Working Paper: Marriage and the City (2005)
Working Paper: Marriage and the City (2005)
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