The Married Widow: Marriage Penalties Matter!
Abstract
Marriage penalties are a controversial feature of many government policies. Empirical evidence of their behavioral effects is quite mixed. This is surprising because economic theory predicts that they should have an impact on the headship decision. We investigate the removal of marriage penalties from the surviving spouse pensions of the Canadian public pension system in the 1980s. These reforms provide a simple and transparent source of identification. Our results indicate that marriage penalties can have large and persistent effects on marriage decisions. We also present evidence suggesting that it is individuals with characteristics correlated with greater wealth who respond to the penalties.Download Info
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 9782.Length:
Date of creation: Jun 2003
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9782
Note: AG LS PR
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Keywords:Other versions of this item:
- Michael Baker & Emily Hanna & Jasmin Kantarevic, 2004. "The Married Widow: Marriage Penalties Matter!," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(4), pages 634-664, 06.
- H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
- H3 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Shannon Seitz & Aloysius Siow & Eugene Choo, 2009.
"Marriage matching, risk sharing and spousal labor supplies,"
2009 Meeting Papers
16, Society for Economic Dynamics.
- Eugene Choo & Shannon Seitz & Aloysius Siow, 2008. "Marriage matching, risk sharing and spousal labor supplies," Working Papers tecipa-332, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
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