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Assortative Matching at the Top of the Distribution: Evidence from the World's Most Exclusive Marriage Market

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  • Marc Goñi

Abstract

Using novel data on peerage marriages in Britain, I find that low search costs and marriage-market segregation can generate sorting. Peers courted in the London Season, a matching technology introducing aristocratic bachelors to debutantes. When Queen Victoria went into mourning for her husband, the Season was interrupted (1861–1863), raising search costs and reducing market segregation. I exploit exogenous variation in women's probability to marry during the interruption from their age in 1861. The interruption increased peer-commoner intermarriage by 40 percent and reduced sorting along landed wealth by 30 percent. Eventually, this reduced peers' political power and affected public policy in late nineteenth-century England.

Suggested Citation

  • Marc Goñi, 2022. "Assortative Matching at the Top of the Distribution: Evidence from the World's Most Exclusive Marriage Market," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 445-487, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:14:y:2022:i:3:p:445-87
    DOI: 10.1257/app.20180463
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • N33 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: Pre-1913

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