The Experts below are selected from a list of 309 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Betsey Stevenson - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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The Impact of Divorce Laws on Marriage‐Specific Capital
Journal of Labor Economics, 2020Co-Authors: Betsey StevensonAbstract:This article considers how Divorce Law alters the incentives for couples to invest in their marriage, focusing on the impact of unilateral Divorce Laws on investments in new marriages. Differences across states between 1970 and 1980 provide useful quasi-experimental variation with which to consider incentives to invest in several types of marriage-specific capital: spouse’s education, children, household specialization, and home ownership. I find that adoption of unilateral Divorce—regardless of the prevailing property-division Laws—reduces investment in all types of marriage-specific capital considered except home ownership. In contrast, results for home ownership depend on the underlying property division Laws.
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Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: Divorce Laws and Family Distress*
Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2020Co-Authors: Betsey Stevenson, Justin WolfersAbstract:This paper exploits the variation occurring from the different timing of Divorce Law reforms across the United States to evaluate how unilateral Divorce changed family violence and whether the option provided by unilateral Divorce reduced suicide and spousal homicide. Unilateral Divorce both potentially increases the likelihood that a domestic violence relationship ends and acts to transfer bargaining power toward the abused, thereby potentially stopping the abuse in extant relationships. In states that introduced unilateral Divorce we find a 8-16 percent decline in female suicide, roughly a 30 percent decline in domestic violence for both men and women, and a 10 percent decline in females murdered by their partners. Copyright (c) President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology..
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Divorce Law and women s labor supply
National Bureau of Economic Research, 2008Co-Authors: Betsey StevensonAbstract:Divorce Law changes made in the 1970s affected marital formation, dissolution, and bargaining within marriage. By altering the terms of the marital contract these legal changes impacted the incentives for women to enter and remain in the labor force. Whereas earlier work had suggested that the impact of unilateral Divorce on female employment depended critically on Laws governing property division, I show that these results are not robust to alternative specifications and controls. I find instead that unilateral Divorce led to an increase in both married and unmarried female labor force participation, regardless of the pre-existing Laws regarding property division.
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Divorce Law changes household bargaining and married women s labor supply revisited
2007Co-Authors: Betsey StevensonAbstract:Divorce Law changes made in the 1970s affected marital formation, dissolution, and bargaining within marriage. By altering the terms of the marital contract these legal changes impacted the incentives for women to enter and remain in the labor force. Whereas earlier work had suggested that the impact of unilateral Divorce on female employment depended critically on Laws governing property division, I show that these results are not robust to alternative specifications and controls. I find instead that unilateral Divorce led to an increase in both married and unmarried female labor force participation, regardless of the underlying property Laws.
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bargaining in the shadow of the Law Divorce Laws and family distress
Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2006Co-Authors: Betsey Stevenson, Justin WolfersAbstract:This paper exploits the variation occurring from the different timing of Divorce Law reforms across the United States to evaluate how unilateral Divorce changed family violence and whether the option provided by unilateral Divorce reduced suicide and spousal homicide. Unilateral Divorce both potentially increases the likelihood that a domestic violence relationship ends and acts to transfer bargaining power toward the abused, thereby potentially stopping the abuse in extant relationships. In states that introduced unilateral Divorce we find a 8–16 percent decline in female suicide, roughly a 30 percent decline in domestic violence for both men and women, and a 10 percent decline in females murdered by their partners.
Steffen Reinhold - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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direct and indirect effects of unilateral Divorce Law on marital stability
Demography, 2014Co-Authors: Thorsten Kneip, Gerrit Bauer, Steffen ReinholdAbstract:Previous research examining the impact of unilateral Divorce Law (UDL) on the prevalence of Divorce has provided mixed results. Studies based on cross-sectional cross-country/cross-state survey data have received criticism for disregarding unobserved heterogeneity across countries, as have studies using country-level panel data for failing to account for possible mediating mechanisms at the micro level. We seek to overcome both shortcomings by using individual-level event-history data from 11 European countries (SHARELIFE) and controlling for unobserved heterogeneity over countries and cohorts. We find that UDL in total increased the incidence of marital breakdown by about 20 %. This finding, however, neglects potential selection effects into marriage. Accordingly, the estimated effect of unilateral Divorce Laws becomes much larger when we control for age at marriage, which is used as indicator for match quality. Moreover, we find that UDL particularly affects marital stability in the presence of children.
Thorsten Kneip - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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direct and indirect effects of unilateral Divorce Law on marital stability
Demography, 2014Co-Authors: Thorsten Kneip, Gerrit Bauer, Steffen ReinholdAbstract:Previous research examining the impact of unilateral Divorce Law (UDL) on the prevalence of Divorce has provided mixed results. Studies based on cross-sectional cross-country/cross-state survey data have received criticism for disregarding unobserved heterogeneity across countries, as have studies using country-level panel data for failing to account for possible mediating mechanisms at the micro level. We seek to overcome both shortcomings by using individual-level event-history data from 11 European countries (SHARELIFE) and controlling for unobserved heterogeneity over countries and cohorts. We find that UDL in total increased the incidence of marital breakdown by about 20 %. This finding, however, neglects potential selection effects into marriage. Accordingly, the estimated effect of unilateral Divorce Laws becomes much larger when we control for age at marriage, which is used as indicator for match quality. Moreover, we find that UDL particularly affects marital stability in the presence of children.
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Did Unilateral Divorce Laws Raise Divorce Rates in Western Europe
Journal of Marriage and Family, 2009Co-Authors: Thorsten Kneip, Gerrit BauerAbstract:The increase in European Divorce rates over the past decades was accompanied by several changes in Divorce Laws. Yet for European countries, research on the effects of Divorce Law on the Divorce rate is scarce. Most of the existing studies are based on data from North America and provide numerous, but inconsistent, results. We use fixed-effects regression models to examine the impact of the introduction of unilateral Divorce on the Divorce rate in Western European countries. We find that de facto unilateral Divorce practices led to a sustainable increase in the Divorce rate, whereas legal rights to unilaterally Divorce had no long-run effects.
Justin Wolfers - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: Divorce Laws and Family Distress*
Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2020Co-Authors: Betsey Stevenson, Justin WolfersAbstract:This paper exploits the variation occurring from the different timing of Divorce Law reforms across the United States to evaluate how unilateral Divorce changed family violence and whether the option provided by unilateral Divorce reduced suicide and spousal homicide. Unilateral Divorce both potentially increases the likelihood that a domestic violence relationship ends and acts to transfer bargaining power toward the abused, thereby potentially stopping the abuse in extant relationships. In states that introduced unilateral Divorce we find a 8-16 percent decline in female suicide, roughly a 30 percent decline in domestic violence for both men and women, and a 10 percent decline in females murdered by their partners. Copyright (c) President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology..
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Did Unilateral Divorce Laws Raise Divorce Rates? A Reconciliation and New Results
The American Economic Review, 2006Co-Authors: Justin WolfersAbstract:Application of the Coase Theorem to marital bargaining suggests that shifting from a consent Divorce regime to no-fault unilateral Divorce Laws should not affect Divorce rates. Each iteration of the empirical literature examining the evolution of Divorce rates across US states has yielded different conclusions about the effects of Divorce Law liberalization. I show that these results reflect a failure to jointly consider both the political endogeneity of these Divorce Laws and the dynamic response of Divorce rates to a shock to the political regime. Taking explicit account of the dynamic response of Divorce rates to the policy shock, I find that liberalized Divorce Laws caused a discernible rise in Divorce rates for about a decade, but that this increase was substantially reversed over the next decade. That said, this increase explains very little of the rise in the Divorce rate over the past half century. Both administrative data on the flow of new Divorces, and measures of the stock of Divorcees from the census support this conclusion. These results are suggestive of spouses bargaining within marriage, with an eye to their partner's Divorce threat.
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bargaining in the shadow of the Law Divorce Laws and family distress
Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2006Co-Authors: Betsey Stevenson, Justin WolfersAbstract:This paper exploits the variation occurring from the different timing of Divorce Law reforms across the United States to evaluate how unilateral Divorce changed family violence and whether the option provided by unilateral Divorce reduced suicide and spousal homicide. Unilateral Divorce both potentially increases the likelihood that a domestic violence relationship ends and acts to transfer bargaining power toward the abused, thereby potentially stopping the abuse in extant relationships. In states that introduced unilateral Divorce we find a 8–16 percent decline in female suicide, roughly a 30 percent decline in domestic violence for both men and women, and a 10 percent decline in females murdered by their partners.
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bargaining in the shadow of the Law Divorce Laws and family distress
National Bureau of Economic Research, 2003Co-Authors: Betsey Stevenson, Justin WolfersAbstract:Over the past thirty years changes in Divorce Law have significantly increased access to Divorce. The different timing of Divorce Law reform across states provides a useful quasi-experiment with which to examine the effects of this change. We analyze state panel data to estimate changes in suicide, domestic violence, and spousal murder rates arising from the change in Divorce Law. Suicide rates are used as a quantifiable measure of wellbeing, albeit one that focuses on the extreme lower tail of the distribution. We find a large, statistically significant, and econometrically robust decline in the number of women committing suicide following the introduction of unilateral Divorce. No significant effect is found for men. Domestic violence is analyzed using data on both family conflict resolution and intimate homicide rates. The results indicate a large decline in domestic violence for both men and women in states that adopted unilateral Divorce. We find suggestive evidence that unilateral Divorce led to a decline in females murdered by their partners, while the data revealed no discernible effects for men murdered. In sum, we find strong evidence that legal institutions have profound real effects on outcomes within families.
Gerrit Bauer - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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direct and indirect effects of unilateral Divorce Law on marital stability
Demography, 2014Co-Authors: Thorsten Kneip, Gerrit Bauer, Steffen ReinholdAbstract:Previous research examining the impact of unilateral Divorce Law (UDL) on the prevalence of Divorce has provided mixed results. Studies based on cross-sectional cross-country/cross-state survey data have received criticism for disregarding unobserved heterogeneity across countries, as have studies using country-level panel data for failing to account for possible mediating mechanisms at the micro level. We seek to overcome both shortcomings by using individual-level event-history data from 11 European countries (SHARELIFE) and controlling for unobserved heterogeneity over countries and cohorts. We find that UDL in total increased the incidence of marital breakdown by about 20 %. This finding, however, neglects potential selection effects into marriage. Accordingly, the estimated effect of unilateral Divorce Laws becomes much larger when we control for age at marriage, which is used as indicator for match quality. Moreover, we find that UDL particularly affects marital stability in the presence of children.
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Did Unilateral Divorce Laws Raise Divorce Rates in Western Europe
Journal of Marriage and Family, 2009Co-Authors: Thorsten Kneip, Gerrit BauerAbstract:The increase in European Divorce rates over the past decades was accompanied by several changes in Divorce Laws. Yet for European countries, research on the effects of Divorce Law on the Divorce rate is scarce. Most of the existing studies are based on data from North America and provide numerous, but inconsistent, results. We use fixed-effects regression models to examine the impact of the introduction of unilateral Divorce on the Divorce rate in Western European countries. We find that de facto unilateral Divorce practices led to a sustainable increase in the Divorce rate, whereas legal rights to unilaterally Divorce had no long-run effects.