A good man is hard to find: Marriage as an institution
- 作者：Murphy ; Jr. ; Russell D.
- 关键词：J12 ; D19 ; Marriage ; Marital dissolution ; Family structure ; Household Behavior
- 刊名：Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
- 出版年：2002
- 期刊代码：36_01672681
- 类别：eco
- 出版时间：January, 2002
- 卷：47
- 期：1
- 页码：27-53
- 文件大小：171 K
摘要
This paper presents a model of marriage as an institution that changes the incentives of a mating game between men and women. Unlike other models of the family, decisions to invest in children are not contractible ex ante, but must be sub-game perfect given that intimacy and pregnancy are sequential. Marriage and divorce, which are publicly observable, create costs for exiting a match; informal relationships do not. Providing an institution which makes a match observable, marriage, improves incentives for men to invest costly unobservable effort in their children.