We combine an instrumental variables approach –exploiting genetic variation in polygenic scores and controlling for population stratification– with a stochastic linear bi-dimensional matching model –which allows us to test the validity of the exclusion restriction. Individuals match on an additive index of overall marital attractiveness which has two components: an observable component (educati...

It has been argued that rising dowry payments are caused by population growth. According to that explanation, termed the `marriage squeeze', a population increase leads to an excess supply of brides since men marry younger women. As a result, dowry payments rise in order to clear the marriage market. The explanation is essentially static; unmarried brides do not re-enter the marriage market. Th...

Change in income inequality in Taiwan from 1964 to 1995 is sensitive to how household incomes are adjusted for household composition. The reasonable practice of dividing household income by persons (or adults) in the household eliminates the widely noted increase in income inequality from 1980 to 1995, and calls into question whether income inequality decreased substantially from 1964 to 1975. ...

Although divorces place millions of women from poor countries into hardship, we know little about this issue and its causes. This paper shows that the lack of children is a leading cause for divorce. We use twins and gender of firstborns as instruments to estimate the effect of the number of children and the existence of a son on mother’ marital statuses. The 2009 Vietnam Population Census show...

This paper introduces an index that facilitates the testing of differing matching theories based on the degree of overlap between a theoretically generated matching joint density and its empirical counterpart. The index is asymptotically Normal, consequently permitting inference. To demonstrate its use, the paper examines the effect the One Child Policy had on matching patterns in the marriage ...

This paper introduces an index that facilitates the testing of differing matching theories based on the degree of overlap between a theoretically generated matching joint density and it’s empirical counterpart. The index is asymptotically Normally distributed, consequently permitting inference. To demonstrate its use, the paper examined the effect the One Child Policy had on matching patterns i...

This paper investigates the impact on cohabitation behavior of the introduction and dispersion of the birth control pill in the US during the 1960s and early 1970s. A theoretical model generates several predictions that are tested using the …rst wave of the National Survey of Families and Households. Empirically, the causal e¤ect is identi…ed by exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in state...

Unemployment and Domestic Violence: Theory and Evidence Is unemployment the overwhelming determinant of domestic violence that many commentators expect it to be? The contribution of this paper is to examine, theoretically and empirically, how changes in unemployment affect the incidence of domestic abuse. The key theoretical prediction is that male and female unemployment have opposite-signed e...

In belligerent countries, male-to-female sex ratios at birth increased during and shortly after the two world wars. These rises still defy explanation. Several causes have been suggested (but not tested) in the literature. Many of these causes are proximate in nature, refl ecting behavioral responses to the dramatically changed marriage market conditions for women and men that were induced by w...

It’s a Boy! Women and Non-Monetary Benefits from a Son in India Son preference is widespread in a number of developing countries. Anecdotal evidence suggests that women may contribute to the persistence of this phenomenon because they derive substantial long-run non-monetary benefits from giving birth to a son in the form of an improvement in their intra-household position. This paper tests thi...