The Marriage Motive: A Price Theory of Marriage

This book offers a comprehensive economic theory of marriage. It examines a wide variety of aspects of marriage, including labor supply of women and the effect of marriage on productivity at work. The book presents both theoretical and empirical analysis.

While this book contains numerous facts and empirical findings and touches on policy issues, its main contribution to the existing literature lies in the theoretical perspective it offers. The core of this book is a general equilibrium theory of labor and marriage presented in Chapter 2, which provides the conceptual framework for the rest of the chapters. Two major implications of the theory are sex ratio effects and compensating differentials in marriage. The book demonstrates how a few core concepts, linked via economic analysis, help explain a multitude of findings based on statistical analyses of data from a wide variety of cultures. It is hoped that readers of this book will improve their understanding of how marriage works to help us design better economic and social policies as well as help people live better and happier lives, making the book of interest to not only economists but sociologists and anthropologists as well.

Provides the first comprehensive economic theory of marriage, spanning a wider variety of aspects of marriage including chapters on labor supply of women and the effect of marriage on productivity at work Surveys an extensive literature on various aspects of marriage written by economists, sociologists, anthropologists and others Presents both theoretical and empirical analysis on the topics discussed Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Inhalt

Introduction.- Part A. A Model of Work-In-Household with Privately Consumed Household Goods.- A Theory of Allocation of Time in Markets for Labor and Marriage: Macro Model.- A Theory of Allocation of Time in Markets for Labor and Marriage: Multiple Markets for Work-In-Household.- Part B. Labor Supply and Other Time Uses.- Macro-Level Implications for Empirical Analyses of Allocation and Valuation of Time: Income, Wage and Sex Ratio Effects.- Implications for Labor Supply with Multiple Markets for Work-In-Household.- Revisiting Labor Supply Effects of Sex Ratios, Income, Wage. Effects of Marriage-Related Laws.- Labor Supply, Household Production and Common Law Marriage Legislation (with Victoria Vernon).- Labor Supply and Marriage Market Conditions: A Simple Graphic Analysis When household Goods are Publicly Consumed.- Household Production and Racial Intermarriage (with J. Ignacio Gimenez-Nadal and J. Alberto Molina).- Part C. Consumption and Savings.- A Consumer Theory with Competitive Markets for Work-in-Household.- A Theory of Savings, In-Marriage Transfers, and Work-in-Household.