Exit and Voice in a Marriage Market

Akiko Maruyama, Takashi Shimizu and Kazuhiro Yamamoto

No 09-04-Rev, Discussion Papers in Economics and Business from Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics

Abstract: In this paper, we present a model in which agents choose voice, exit, or stay options when their marital condition becomes bad. The "voice" option can be interpreted as a spouse's effort or "investment" in the household to resolve his/her dissatisfaction and improve the marital condition. If a spouse hopes to divorce, he/she chooses the "exit" option. If a spouse does not hope to express his/her opinion and divorce, he/she chooses the "stay" option. We focus on the role of "exit" and "voice" in a marriage and investigate the effects of a divorce law that is based on fault or no-fault on divorce rates. Our study shows that divorce rates tend to be too high under a unilateral divorce law in the non-transferable utility case. On the other hand, mutual-consent divorce law generates multiple equilibria, and divorce rates are then inefficient even in the transferable utility case. In this multiple equilibrium case, divorce rates are determined by social factors, such as culture, norm, and religion.

Keywords: Exit; Voice; Divorce law (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D1 K0 R2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2009-02, Revised 2009-03
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Working Paper: Exit and Voice in a Marriage Market (2009)
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