Suchergebnisse

We develop a collective household model with spousal matching in which there exists marital gains to assortative matching and marriage quality for each couple is revealed ex post. Changes in alimony laws are shown to affect existing couples and couples-to-be differently. For existing couples, legislative changes that favor (wo)men benefit them especially if the marriage match quality is low, while, for couples not yet formed, they generate offsetting intra-household transfers and lower intra-marital allocations for the spouses who are the intended beneficiary. We then estimate the effect of granting alimony rights to cohabiting couples in Canada using a triple-difference framework since each province extended these rights in different years and requiring different cohabitation length. We find that obtaining the right to petition for alimony led women to lower their labor force participation. These results, however, do not hold - and, in some cases, are reversed - for newly formed cohabiting couples.

Abstract
The extent to which individuals commit to their partner for life has important implications. This paper develops a lifecycle collective model of the household, through which it characterises behaviour in three prominent alternative types of commitment: full, limited, and no commitment. We propose a test that distinguishes between all three types based on how contemporaneous and historical news affect household behaviour. Our test permits heterogeneity in the degree of commitment across households. Using recent data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we reject full and no commitment, while we find strong evidence for limited commitment.