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Marriage and Consumption Insurance: What's Love Got To Do With It?

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Author Info
Gregory D. Hess (Claremont McKenna College)

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Abstract

This paper explores the role of marriage when markets are incomplete so that individuals cannot diversify their idiosyncratic labor income risk. Ceteris paribus, an individual would prefer to marry a "hedge" (i.e. a spouse whose income is negatively correlated with her own) as it raises her expected utility. The presence of love, however, complicates the picture. If love is very persistent, for example, and the resolution of uncertainty to agents' income is early, then those who in fact married hedges are the ones most likely to be caught short with too little love in order to save a marriage in the event of an adverse shock. Consequently, under these conditions individuals who are good hedges for one another are more likely to marry one another, although once married, they will be more likely to divorce. In contrast, if love is fleeting and the resolution of uncertainty to agents' income is predominantly later, then those who in fact marry hedges will in fact be less likely to subsequently divorce. Evidence is provided to distinguish which of these alternative scenarios is in support of these aspects of the decision to stay married. Additional hypotheses regarding the effect of differences in the expected means and volatilities of partners' incomes are also derived from the theory and tested.

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Paper provided by Claremont Colleges in its series Claremont Colleges Working Papers with number 2002-15.

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Date of creation: Jan 2002
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Handle: RePEc:clm:clmeco:2002-15

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Related research
Keywords: Consumption Insurance; Marriage;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Laurence J. Kotlikoff & Avia Spivak, 1979. "The Family as an Incomplete Annuities Market," NBER Working Papers 0362, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Johansen, Soren & Juselius, Katarina, 1990. "Maximum Likelihood Estimation and Inference on Cointegration--With Applications to the Demand for Money," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 52(2), pages 169-210, May.
  3. Gregory D. Hess & Kwanho Shin, 1999. "Risk sharing of disaggregate macroeconomic and idiosyncratic shocks," Working Paper 9915, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
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  4. Hausman, Jerry A, 1978. "Specification Tests in Econometrics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(6), pages 1251-71, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Kiefer, Nicholas M, 1988. "Economic Duration Data and Hazard Functions," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 26(2), pages 646-79, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. David K. Backus & Patrick J. Kehoe & Finn E. Kydland, 1991. "International real business cycles," Staff Report 146, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Hess, Gregory D. & Shin, Kwanho, 1998. "Intranational business cycles in the United States," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 289-313, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Cochrane, John H, 1991. "A Simple Test of Consumption Insurance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(5), pages 957-76, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Mace, Barbara J, 1991. "Full Insurance in the Presence of Aggregate Uncertainty," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(5), pages 928-56, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Ogaki, Masao & Zhang, Qiang, 2001. "Decreasing Relative Risk Aversion and Tests of Risk Sharing," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(2), pages 515-26, March.
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  11. Murphy, Kevin M & Topel, Robert H, 1985. "Estimation and Inference in Two-Step Econometric Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 3(4), pages 370-79, October.
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Halla, Martin & Scharler, Johann, 2008. "Marriage, Divorce and Interstate Risk Sharing," IZA Discussion Papers 3744, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Raaum, Oddbjørn & Bratsberg, Bernt & Røed, Knut & Österbacka , Eva & Eriksson, Tor & Jäntti, Markus & Naylor, Robin, 2007. "Marital Sorting, Household Labor Supply, and Intergenerational Earnings Mobility across Countries," Memorandum 17/2007, Oslo University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Michael Svarer & Helena Skyt Nielsen, 2006. "Educational Homogamy: Preferences or Opportunities?," Economics Working Papers 2006-10, School of Economics and Management, University of Aarhus. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Martin Browning & Laura Blow & Mette Ejrnaes, 2009. "Marriage and consumption," Economics Series Working Papers 427, University of Oxford, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
    • Laura Blow & Martin Browning & Mette Ejrnæs, 2009. "Marriage and Consumption," CAM Working Papers 2009-07, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. Centre for Applied Microeconometrics. [Downloadable!]
  5. Nzinga Broussard & Ralph Chami & Gregory Hess, 2003. "(Why) Do Self-Employed Parents Have More Children?," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
  6. John M. Nunley, 2007. "The Effects of Household Income Volatility on Divorce," Working Papers 200718, Middle Tennessee State University, Department of Economics and Finance. [Downloadable!]
  7. Ralph Chami & Gregory Hess, 2002. "For Better or For Worse? State-Level Marital Formation and Risk Sharing," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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