IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tin/wpaper/20070021.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Sin City?

Author

Listed:
  • Pieter A. Gautier

    (VU University Amsterdam)

  • Michael Svarer

    (Aarhus University)

  • Coen N. Teulings

    (University of Amsterdam)

Abstract

Is moving to the countryside a credible commitment device for couples? Weinvestigate whether lowering the arrival rate of potential alternative partners bymoving to a less populated area lowers the dissolution risk for a sample of Danishcouples. We find that of the couples who married in the city, the ones who stay inthe city have significant higher divorce rates. Similarly, for the couples who marriedoutside the city, the ones who move to the city are more likely to divorce. Thiscorrelation can be explained by both a causal and a sorting effect. We disentanglethem by using the timing-of-events approach. In addition we use information on father’slocation as an instrument. We find that the sorting effect dominates. Movingto the countryside is therefore not a cheap way to prolong relationships. See 'Sin City? Why is the Divorce Rate Higher in Urban Areas?' , in 'Scandinavian Journal of Economics', 2009, 111(3), 439-56.

Suggested Citation

  • Pieter A. Gautier & Michael Svarer & Coen N. Teulings, 2007. "Sin City?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 07-021/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20070021
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/07021.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    • Teulings, Coen & Gautier, Pieter & Svarer, Michael, 2007. "Sin City?," CEPR Discussion Papers 6170, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Gautier, Pieter A. & Svarer, Michael & Teulings, Coen, 2007. "Sin City?," IZA Discussion Papers 2632, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Pieter A. Gautier & Michael Svarer & Coen N. Teulings, 2007. "Sin City?," Economics Working Papers 2007-01, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    • Pieter A. Gautier & Michael Svarer & Coen N. Teulings, 2007. "Sin City?," CAM Working Papers 2007-01, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. Centre for Applied Microeconometrics.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peters, H Elizabeth, 1986. "Marriage and Divorce: Informational Constraints and Private Contracting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(3), pages 437-454, June.
    2. Weiss, Yoram & Willis, Robert J, 1997. "Match Quality, New Information, and Marital Dissolution," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(1), pages 293-329, January.
    3. Gautier, Pieter A. & Svarer, Michael & Teulings, Coen, 2005. "Marriage and the City," IZA Discussion Papers 1491, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Van den Berg, Gerard J., 2001. "Duration models: specification, identification and multiple durations," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 55, pages 3381-3460, Elsevier.
    5. Jaap H. Abbring & Gerard J. van den Berg, 2003. "The Nonparametric Identification of Treatment Effects in Duration Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(5), pages 1491-1517, September.
    6. Tracy J. Cornelius, 2003. "A Search Model of Marriage and Divorce," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 6(1), pages 135-155, January.
    7. Becker, Gary S & Landes, Elisabeth M & Michael, Robert T, 1977. "An Economic Analysis of Marital Instability," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(6), pages 1141-1187, December.
    8. Burdett Kenneth & Imai Ryoichi & Wright Randall, 2004. "Unstable Relationships," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-44, January.
    9. Lillard, Lee A., 1993. "Simultaneous equations for hazards : Marriage duration and fertility timing," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1-2), pages 189-217, March.
    10. Rene Boheim & John Ermisch, 2001. "Partnership Dissolution in the UK – the Role of Economic Circumstances," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 63(2), pages 197-208, May.
    11. Adrian Masters, 2008. "Marriage, Commitment and Divorce in a Matching Model with Differential Aging," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(3), pages 614-628, July.
    12. Michael Svarer, 2004. "Is Your Love in Vain? Another Look at Premarital Cohabitation and Divorce," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(2).
    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. Pieter A. Gautier & Michael Svarer & Coen N. Teulings, 2009. "Sin City? Why is the Divorce Rate Higher in Urban Areas?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 111(3), pages 439-456, September.
    2. Svarer, Michael & Verner, Mette, "undated". "Do Children Stabilize Marriages?," Economics Working Papers 2003-3, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    3. Svarer, Michael, "undated". "Determinants of Divorce in Denmark," Economics Working Papers 2002-19, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    4. Li, Li & Mak, Eric, 2016. "Marriage, Divorce, Remarriage: The Catalyst Effect of Unilateral Divorce," MPRA Paper 83330, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Delia Furtado & Miriam Marcén & Almudena Sevilla, 2013. "Does Culture Affect Divorce? Evidence From European Immigrants in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(3), pages 1013-1038, June.
    6. Bellido, Héctor & Marcén, Miriam, 2014. "Divorce laws and fertility," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 56-70.
    7. Michael Svarer, 2011. "Crime and partnerships," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 307-325, September.
    8. Evelyn Lehrer & Yu Chen, 2013. "Delayed entry into first marriage and marital stability," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 29(20), pages 521-542.
    9. Almudena Sevilla-Sanz & Delia Furtado and Miriam Marcen, 2010. "Does Culture Affect Divorce Decisions? Evidence from European Immigrants in the US," Economics Series Working Papers 495, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    10. Jennifer Klein, 2017. "House Price Shocks and Individual Divorce Risk in the United States," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 38(4), pages 628-649, December.
    11. Coles, Melvyn & Francesconi, Marco, 2007. "On the Emergence of Toyboys: Equilibrium Matching with Ageing and Uncertain Careers," IZA Discussion Papers 2612, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Lehrer, Evelyn L. & Chen, Yu, 2012. "Delayed Entry into First Marriage: Further Evidence on the Becker-Landes-Michael Hypothesis," IZA Discussion Papers 6729, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Éric Langlais, 2010. "On unilateral divorce and the “selection of marriages” hypothesis," Recherches économiques de Louvain, De Boeck Université, vol. 76(3), pages 229-256.
    14. Helmut Rainer & Ian Smith, 2010. "Staying together for the sake of the home?: house price shocks and partnership dissolution in the UK," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 173(3), pages 557-574, July.
    15. Marcus Eliason, 2012. "Lost jobs, broken marriages," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(4), pages 1365-1397, October.
    16. John Douglas Skåtun, 2017. "Bargaining on your Spouse: Coasean and Non-Coasean Behaviour Within Marriage," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 263-278, June.
    17. Donni, Olivier, 2014. "Over-investment in marriage-specific capital," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 34-43.
    18. Michael Svarer, 2007. "Working Late: Do Workplace Sex Ratios Affect Partnership Formation and Dissolution?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(3).
    19. Laurens Cherchye & Bram De Rock & Frederic Vermeulen & Selma Walther, 2021. "Where did it go wrong? Marriage and divorce in Malawi," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(2), pages 505-545, May.
    20. Peter Thompson, 2008. "Desperate Housewives? Communication Difficulties and the Dynamics of Marital (un)Happiness," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(532), pages 1640-1669, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Dissolution; search; mobility; city;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

    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:tin:wpaper:20070021. 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: Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tinbenl.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.