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The Impact of a Mandatory Cooling-off Period on Divorce

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  • Jungmin Lee

Abstract

A mandated waiting period between a divorce filing and the issuance of the divorce decree has been adopted in many countries to reduce impetuous divorces and encourage reconciliation. In this paper, I estimate the impact of a compulsory waiting period on the divorce rate. Since 2004, South Korean local courts had been voluntarily adopting the cooling-off policy, and later it became a national law. To evaluate the impact of the policy, I exploit variation in the timing of the policy adoption across local courts. I find that the cooling-off policy significantly decreases the divorce rate, whereas there is no significant effect on the divorce filing rate.

Suggested Citation

  • Jungmin Lee, 2013. "The Impact of a Mandatory Cooling-off Period on Divorce," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(1), pages 227-243.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlawec:doi:10.1086/667710
    DOI: 10.1086/667710
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    Cited by:

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    2. Michel, Christian & Stenzel, André, 2021. "Model-based evaluation of cooling-off policies," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 270-293.
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    6. Antonio Cabrales & Antonio M. Espín & Praveen Kujal & Stephen Rassenti, 2017. "Humans’ (incorrect) distrust of reflective decisions," Working Papers 17-05, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    7. Gesche, Tobias, 2018. "Reference Price Shifts and Customer Antagonism: Evidence from Reviews for Online Auctions," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181650, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    8. Ortmann, Andreas & Ryvkin, Dmitry & Wilkening, Tom & Zhang, Jingjing, 2023. "Defaults and cognitive effort," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 1-19.
    9. Rassenti, Stephen & Espin, Antonio M. & Kujal, Praveen, 2017. "Humans’ (incorrect) distrust of reflective decisions," CEPR Discussion Papers 11949, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Neyland, Jordan, 2020. "Love or money: The effect of CEO divorce on firm risk and compensation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    11. Carola Braun & Katrin Rehdanz & Ulrich Schmidt, 2018. "Exploring public perception of environmental technology over time," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 61(1), pages 143-160, January.
    12. Hertegård, Edvin, 2024. "Divorce law reform, family stability, and children's long-term outcomes," Working Paper Series 2024:11, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    13. Andersen, Steffen & Gneezy, Uri & Kajackaite, Agne & Marx, Julie, 2018. "Allowing for reflection time does not change behavior in dictator and cheating games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 24-33.

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