Marriage Meets the Joneses: Relative Income, Identity, and Marital Status

This paper investigates the effect of relative income on marriage. Accounting flexibly for absolute income, the ratio between a manÂ’s income and a local reference group median is a strong predictor of marital status, but only for low-income men. Relative income affects marriage even among those living with a partner. A ten percent higher reference group income is associated with a two percent reduction in marriage. We propose an identity model to explain the results.marriage, relative income, inequality, identity

Marriage Meets the Joneses: Relative Income, Identity, and Marital Status

In this paper we investigate the effect of relative income on marital status. We develop an identity model based on Akerlof and Kranton (2000) and apply it to the marriage decision. The empirical evidence is consistent with the idea that people are more likely to marry when their incomes approach a financial level associated with idealized norms of marriage. We hypothesize that the marriage ideal is determined by the median income in an individual’s local reference group. After controlling flexibly for the absolute level of income and a number of other factors, the ratio between a man’s income and the marriage ideal is a strong predictor of marital status but only if he is below the ideal. For white men, relative income considerations jointly drive coresidence, marriage, and fatherhood decisions. For black men, relative income affects the marriage decision only, and relative income is tied to marital status even for those living with a partner and children. Relative income concerns explain 10-15 percent of the decline in marriage since 1970 for low income white men, and account for more than half of the persistent marriage gap between high- and low-income men.marriage, relative income, inequality, identity

Marriage Meets the Joneses: Relative Income, Identity, and Marital Status

In this paper we investigate the effect of relative income on marital status. We develop an identity model based on Akerlof and Kranton (2000) and apply it to the marriage decision. The empirical evidence is consistent with the idea that people are more likely to marry when their incomes approach a financial level associated with idealized norms of marriage. We hypothesize that the "marriage ideal" is determined by the median income in an individual's local reference group. After controlling flexibly for the absolute level of income and a number of other factors, the ratio between a man's income and the marriage ideal is a strong predictor of marital status -- but only if he is below the ideal. For white men, relative income considerations jointly drive co-residence, marriage, and fatherhood decisions. For black men, relative income affects the marriage decision only, and relative income is tied to marital status even for those living with a partner and children. Relative income concerns explain 10-15 percent of the decline in marriage since 1970 for low income white men, and account for more than half of the persistent marriage gap between high- and low-income men.

Appendix: Case Studies of Financial Institutions that Offer Alternative Small Dollar Loans

This paper is an Appendix to the IABG paper, "Alternative Small Dollar Loans: Building the Business Case", and provides case studies of financial institutions that currently offer an alternative small dollar loan product -- many that are based in Illinois. These case studies provide examples of various strategies to implement an alternative small dollar loan program. Additionally, the data from these programs can begin to build a business case for this product

Skill Shortages, Labor Reallocation, and Growth

This paper explores the relationship between growth and unemployment. Knowledge formation is the source of growth, which includes the two dimensions technologies and skills. Both are connected through a technology-skill complementarity which may have limiting effects on the reallocation of labor and technology implementation in manufacturing. The reallocation of labor becomes necessary as growth leads to continuous job creation and job destruction. The ratio of job destruction to job creation identifies three regimes, two of which are associated with unemployment either due to restricted labor demand or due to skill shortages. While in the regime with full employment the model confirms the standard result that knowledge formation has positive effects on growth, the outcome is much more ambiguous if we consider a possible technology-skill mismatch and unemployment.endogenous growth, knowledge formation, unemployment, skill mismatch

Intergenerational linkages and government budget policies

Saving and investment ; Social security ; Fiscal policy

Optimal growth under military threat

National Defense is a public good that requires resources for its production and its availability affects the economic behavior of private agents. A major policy problem of the government is to find an optimal allocation of resources between private use and national defense. It is shown that, in a simple optimal growth framework, a government's solution may not be the one that satisfies the military authority's objective. Attention is drawn to the need of cooperation between these two bodies and to the importance of the transparency of military expenditures in reaching a compromise that satisfies the public

Resources, trade and debt: the case of Mexico

The paper studies a two-region economy , with two sectors and three factors of production : oil, capital and labor . The South exports oil in exchange for industrial goods from the North . There is a net capital inflow to the South . This equals the difference between its export revenues and import costs, and represents the South's indebtedness . This overseas borrowing finances the development of the oil sector : increased borrowing leads to higher oil supplies, to new levels of consumption and a new distribution of income in the South, as well as to new levels of exports from the North . The paper studies the macro impacts of changes in the value of the debt on both the borrowing and the lending regions . The results are illustrated by simulations with data for the U .S .A . and Mexico .Mexico; north-south; trade; debt; debt in developing nations; oil exportation; PEMEX; income distribution

Where's the beef? the trivial dynamics of real business cycle models

The extremely weak propagation mechanisms of real business cycle (RBC) models are well acknowledged, and some effort has been devoted to improving the models on this dimension. This paper builds on these efforts to provide an explicit explanation of why various existing RBC models do not replicate real world business cycles, and discusses modifications necessary to bring real business cycle theory into closer conformity with the data.Business cycles