No-fault divorce and the compression of marriage ages

We examine how no-fault divorce law affects the age at first marriage, when everyone has a different value of marriage. The heterogeneity of individual values implies an unambiguous negative effect on the variance of marriage age. We test this hypothesis with marriage records from 1970 to 1995. Controlling for state-level heterogeneity and for time trends, the standard deviation of the log age at first marriage drops by approximately 5% with the introduction of no-fault divorce. We find that the mean age at first marriage increases slightly, suggesting that the mean person is slightly worse off with no-fault divorce. © Western Economic Association Inernational.postprin

Parental ethnic identity and child test scores

We examine the relationship between parental ethnic identity and the test scores of ethnic minority children. We use standard survey measures of the strength of parental identity alongside validated cognitive test scores in a rich British cohort study. We show that children whose mothers report either an adoption or an active rejection of the majority identity tend to score lower in cognitive tests at age 7, compared to those children whose mothers report neutral feelings about the majority identity. We find no consistent differences in test scores according to mothers’ minority identity. Our findings provide no support for education or citizenship policies which promote the adoption of the majority identity or discourage the maintenance of separate identities in ethnic minority communities

On the expenditure-dependence of children\u2019s resource shares

Collective household models posit that each household member has access to a fraction of the household budget, called a resource share, which defines the shadow budget faced by a household member. Together with the within-household shadow price vector, the shadow budget determines the material well-being of the household member. In general, it is difficult to identify resource shares from typical household-level consumption data. However, several recent papers have shown that if resource shares do not depend on total household expenditure, then identification of resource shares may proceed from commonly available Engel curve data. Unfortunately, typical datasets do not allow the testing of this restriction. In this paper, we use a novel Italian dataset to establish that children\u2019s resource shares do not exhibit much dependence on total household expenditure. Thus, identification of resource shares on the basis of this restriction may be valid

On the Expenditure-Dependence of Children's Resource Shares

Collective household models posit that each household member has access to a fraction of the household budget, called a resource share, which defines the shadow budget faced by a household member. Together with the within-household shadow price vector, the shadow budget determines the material well-being of the household member. In general, it is difficult to identify resource shares from typical household-level consumption data. However, several recent papers have shown that if resource shares do not depend on total household expenditure, then identification of resource shares may proceed from commonly available Engel curve data. Unfortunately, typical datasets do not allow the testing of this restriction. In this paper, we use a novel Italian dataset to establish that children’s resource shares do not exhibit much dependence on total household expenditure. Thus, identification of resource shares on the basis of this restriction may be valid