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Household behavior and the marriage market

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  • Del Boca, Daniela
  • Flinn, Christopher J.

Abstract

There is some controversy in the field of household economics regarding the efficiency of household decisions. We make the point that a flexible specification of spousal preferences and the household production technology precludes the possibility of using revealed preference data on household time allocations to determine the manner in which spouses interact: efficiently or inefficiently. Under strong, but standard, assumptions regarding marriage market equilibria, marital sorting patterns can be used essentially as “out of sample” information that allows us to assess whether household behavior is efficient or not. We develop a new likelihood-based metric to compare marriage market fits under the two alternative behavioral assumptions. We use a sample of households drawn from a recent wave of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, and find strong evidence supporting the view that household behavior is (constrained) efficient.

Suggested Citation

  • Del Boca, Daniela & Flinn, Christopher J., 2014. "Household behavior and the marriage market," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 515-550.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:150:y:2014:i:c:p:515-550
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2013.10.001
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    14. Del Boca, Daniela & Flinn, Christopher, 2012. "Endogenous household interaction," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 166(1), pages 49-65.
    15. Bound, John & Brown, Charles & Duncan, Greg J & Rodgers, Willard L, 1994. "Evidence on the Validity of Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Labor Market Data," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(3), pages 345-368, July.
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    Cited by:

    1. Donni, Olivier & Molina, José Alberto, 2018. "Household Collective Models: Three Decades of Theoretical Contributions and Empirical Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 11915, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner & Georgi Kocharkov & Cezar Santos, 2016. "Technology and the Changing Family: A Unified Model of Marriage, Divorce, Educational Attainment, and Married Female Labor-Force Participation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 1-41, January.
    3. Edwards, Ryan D. & Roff, Jennifer, 2016. "What mom and dad’s match means for junior: Marital sorting and child outcomes," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 43-56.
    4. François Cochard & Hélène Couprie & Astrid Hopfensitz, 2016. "Do spouses cooperate? An experimental investigation," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 1-26, March.
    5. Greenwood, Jeremy & Guner, Nezih & Santos, Cezar & Kocharakov, Georgi, 2015. "Technology and the Changing Family: A Unified Model of Marriage, Divorce, Educational Attainment and Married Female Labor-Force," CEPR Discussion Papers 10434, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Laurens Cherchye & Thomas Demuynck & Bram De Rock & Frederic Vermeulen, 2017. "Household Consumption When the Marriage Is Stable," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(6), pages 1507-1534, June.
    7. Schwartz, Jacob & Song, Kyungchul, 2024. "The law of large numbers for large stable matchings," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 241(1).
    8. Eva Raiber & Weiwei Ren & Jeanne Bovet & Paul Seabright & Charlotte Wang, 2023. "What Do Parents Want? Parental Spousal Preferences in China," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 71(3), pages 903-939.
    9. Robert A. Pollak, 2019. "How Bargaining in Marriage Drives Marriage Market Equilibrium," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(1), pages 297-321.
    10. Hugo Reis, 2020. "Girls' Schooling Choices And Home Production: Evidence From Pakistan," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 61(2), pages 783-819, May.
    11. Gurven, Michael & Hopfensitz, Astrid & Kaplan, Hillard & Stieglitz, Jonathan, 2016. "Why household inefficiency? An experimental approach to assess spousal resource distribution preferences in a subsistence population undergoing socioeconomic change," TSE Working Papers 16-670, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    12. Gustaf Bruze, 2015. "Male And Female Marriage Returns To Schooling," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(1), pages 207-234, February.
    13. Agarwal, Sumit & Green, Richard & Rosenblatt, Eric & Yao, Vincent W. & Zhang, Jian, 2018. "Gender difference and intra-household economic power in mortgage signing order," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 86-100.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bilateral matching; Household time allocation; Efficient outcomes; Likelihood analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

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