IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp6599.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

From Polygyny to Serial Monogamy: A Unified Theory of Marriage Institutions

Author

Listed:
  • de la Croix, David

    (Université catholique de Louvain)

  • Mariani, Fabio

    (Université catholique de Louvain)

Abstract

Consider an economy populated by males and females, both rich and poor. The society has to choose one of the following marriage institutions: polygyny, strict monogamy, and serial monogamy (divorce and remarriage). After having identified the conditions under which each of these equilibria exists, we show that a rise in the share of rich males can explain a change of regime from polygyny to monogamy. The introduction of serial monogamy follows from a further rise in either the proportion of rich males, or an increase in the proportion of rich females. Strict monogamy is a prerequisite to serial monogamy, as it promotes the upward social mobility of females more than polygyny. We also show that polygyny is compatible with democracy.

Suggested Citation

  • de la Croix, David & Mariani, Fabio, 2012. "From Polygyny to Serial Monogamy: A Unified Theory of Marriage Institutions," IZA Discussion Papers 6599, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6599
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp6599.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bergstrom, Theodore C & Bagnoli, Mark, 1993. "Courtship as a Waiting Game," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(1), pages 185-202, February.
    2. Gilles SAINT-PAUL, 2015. "Genes Legitimacy and Hypergamy : Another Look at the Economics of Marriage," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(4), pages 331-377, December.
    3. Duranton, Gilles & Martin, Philippe & Mayer, Thierry & Mayneris, Florian, 2010. "The Economics of Clusters: Lessons from the French Experience," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199592203.
    4. Petrongolo, Barbara & Olivetti, Claudia, 2011. "Gender Gaps across Countries and Skills: Supply, Demand and the Industry Structure," CEPR Discussion Papers 8545, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Francesconi, Marco & Ghiglino, Christian & Perry, Motty, 2009. "On the Origin of the Family," IZA Discussion Papers 4637, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Victor Hiller & Magali Recoules, 2010. "Divorce decisions, divorce laws and social norms," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00497439, HAL.
    7. R. Lesthaeghe & K. Neels, 2002. "From the First to the Second Demographic Transition: An Interpretation of the Spatial Continuity of Demographic Innovation in France, Belgium and Switzerland," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 18(4), pages 325-360, December.
    8. Fleurbaey,Marc & Maniquet,François, 2011. "A Theory of Fairness and Social Welfare," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521887427, September.
    9. Scott Drewianka, 2008. "Divorce law and family formation," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 21(2), pages 485-503, April.
    10. Matthias Doepke & Michèle Tertilt, 2009. "Women's Liberation: What's in It for Men?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(4), pages 1541-1591.
    11. Todd Schoellman & Michèle Tertilt, 2006. "Marriage Laws and Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 295-298, May.
    12. Anderson, Gary M. & Tollison, Robert D., 1998. "Celestial marriage and earthly rents: Interests and the prohibition of polygamy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 169-181, October.
    13. Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, 2007. "Marriage and Divorce: Changes and their Driving Forces," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 27-52, Spring.
    14. Nils-Petter Lagerlöf, 2005. "Sex, equality, and growth," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 38(3), pages 807-831, August.
    15. Gaertner,Wulf & Schokkaert,Erik, 2011. "Empirical Social Choice," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107013940, October.
    16. Korn, Evelyn, 2000. "On the Formation of Family Structures," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 105(3-4), pages 357-372, December.
    17. Lena Edlund & Nils-Petter Lagerlöf, 2006. "Individual versus Parental Consent in Marriage: Implications for Intra-Household Resource Allocation and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 304-307, May.
    18. David G. Schramm, 2006. "Individual and Social Costs of Divorce in Utah," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 133-151, April.
    19. Lagerlöf, Nils-Petter & Edlund, Lena, 2006. "Individual vs. Parental Consent in Marriage: Implications for Intra-Household Resource Allocation and Growth," CEPR Discussion Papers 5474, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Barham, Vicky & Devlin, Rose Anne & Yang, Jie, 2009. "A theory of rational marriage and divorce," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 93-106, January.
    21. Oded Galor, 2011. "Unified Growth Theory," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9477.
    22. Ron J. Lesthaeghe & Lisa Neidert, 2006. "The Second Demographic Transition in the United States: Exception or Textbook Example?," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 32(4), pages 669-698, December.
    23. Pierre-Andre Chiappori & Yoram Weiss, 2006. "Divorce, Remarriage, and Welfare: A General Equilibrium Approach," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(2-3), pages 415-426, 04-05.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fabio Mariani, 2012. "The economic value of virtue," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 323-356, December.
    2. Fujii, Tomoki, 2017. "Dynamic Poverty Decomposition Analysis: An Application to the Philippines," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 69-84.
    3. Gould, Eric D. & Moav, Omer & Simhon, Avi, 2012. "Lifestyles of the rich and polygynous in Cote d’Ivoire," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 115(3), pages 404-407.
    4. Lena Edlund, 2013. "The Role of Paternity Presumption and Custodial Rights for Understanding Marriage Patterns," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 80(320), pages 650-669, October.
    5. Dirk Van de gaer & Joost Vandenbossche & José Luis Figueroa, 2014. "Children's Health Opportunities and Project Evaluation: Mexico's Oportunidades Program," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 28(2), pages 282-310.
    6. Mendolicchio Concetta & Paolini Dimitri & Pietra Tito, 2012. "Asymmetric Information And Overeducation," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-29, October.
    7. Claude, DASPREMONT & Rodolphe, DOS SANTOS FERREIRA & Jacques, THEPOT, 2007. "Hawks and doves in segmented markets : a formal approach to competitive aggressiveness," Discussion Papers (ECON - Département des Sciences Economiques) 2007039, Université catholique de Louvain, Département des Sciences Economiques.
    8. Dehez, Pierre & Ferey, Samuel, 2013. "How to share joint liability: A cooperative game approach," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 44-50.
    9. Bocart, Fabian Y.R.P. & Hafner, Christian M., 2015. "Fair Revaluation of Wine as an Investment," Journal of Wine Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(2), pages 190-203, November.
    10. Caulier, Jean-François & Mauleon, Ana & Vannetelbosch, Vincent, 2015. "Allocation rules for coalitional network games," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 80-88.
    11. DEVOLDER, Olivier & GLINEUR, François & NESTEROV, Yurii, 2013. "First-order methods with inexact oracle: the strongly convex case," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2013016, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    12. Christophe Bravard & Sudipta Sarangi & ANA MAULEON & JOSE J. SEMPERE-MONERRIS & VINCENT VANNETELBOSCH, 2016. "Contractually Stable Alliances," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 18(2), pages 212-225, April.
    13. Thierry Bréchet & Carmen Camacho & Vladimir M. Veliov, 2012. "Adaptive Model-Predictive Climate Policies in a Multi-Country Setting," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 12029, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    14. NESTEROV, Yurii & NEMIROVSKI, Arkadi, 2012. "Finding the stationary states of Markov chains by iterative methods," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2012058, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    15. Jacques Dreze, 2016. "Existence and multiplicity of temporary equilibria under nominal price rigidities," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 62(1), pages 279-298, June.
    16. Dehez Pierre & Poukens Sophie, 2014. "The Shapley Value as a Guide to FRAND Licensing Agreements," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(3), pages 265-284, November.
    17. Thomas Baudin & David de la Croix & Paula E. Gobbi, 2015. "Fertility and Childlessness in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(6), pages 1852-1882, June.
    18. Thierry Bréchet & Yann Ménière & Pierre M. Picard, 2016. "The Clean Development Mechanism in a world carbon market," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 49(4), pages 1569-1598, November.
    19. Sudipto Bhattacharya & Claude d’Aspremont & Sergei Guriev & Debapriya Sen & Yair Tauman, 2014. "Cooperation in R&D: Patenting, Licensing, and Contracting," International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, in: Kalyan Chatterjee & William Samuelson (ed.), Game Theory and Business Applications, edition 2, chapter 0, pages 265-286, Springer.
    20. Jacques Drèze & Erik Schokkaert, 2013. "Arrow’s theorem of the deductible: Moral hazard and stop-loss in health insurance," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 147-163, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    political economy; marriage; polygyny; monogamy; divorce; human capital;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6599. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.