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Are there Increasing Returns in Marriage Markets?

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Author Info
Maristella Botticini
Aloysius Siow

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Abstract

The returns to scale of marriage markets have important behavioral and welfare consequences. It is quantitatively difficult to estimate the returns to scale because, due to endogenous migration, the marriage market size is endogenous. This paper addresses the endogeneity in two ways. First, it estimates the degree of returns to scale in U.S. marriage markets using the 2000 census. Given that in the United States people move to cities to find marriage partners and, therefore, the size of the marriage market is endogenous, we instrument the current size of a cohort in the marriage market with the size of that cohort twenty years earlier. Second, it estimates city scale effects in two societies---early Renaissance Tuscany and pre-reform China---where there was little internal mobility, and thus, the size of the marriage market can be considered exogenous. The main finding is that in all three societies, there is no evidence of increasing returns to scale in marriage markets, whereas the hypothesis of constant returns to scale cannot be rejected. This is true when looking at marriage odds ratios, total gains to marriage, and the quality of marital match. Given the different characteristics of the three societies in terms of population size, time period, economic structure, and social norms characterizing the marriage market, the similarity and precision of the estimates for returns to scale parameters is remarkable.

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Paper provided by University of Toronto, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number tecipa-333.

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Length: 1 pages
Date of creation: 08 Sep 2008
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Handle: RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-333

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Related research
Keywords: Increasing returns; marriage market; United States; China; Renaissance Tuscany;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics

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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. Eugene Choo & Aloysius Siow, 2006. "Who Marries Whom and Why," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(1), pages 175-201, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Janice Compton & Robert A. Pollak, 2004. "Why Are Power Couples Increasingly Concentrated in Large Metropolitan Areas," NBER Working Papers 10918, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Dora L. Costa & Matthew E. Kahn, 1999. "Power Couples: Changes in the Locational Choice of the College Educated, 1940-1990," NBER Working Papers 7109, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Pieter Gautier & Michael Svarer & Coen Teulings, 2005. "Marriage and the City," CAM Working Papers 2005-01, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. Centre for Applied Microeconometrics. [Downloadable!]
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  5. Maristella Botticini & Aloysius Siow, 2003. "Why Dowries?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1385-1398, September. [Downloadable!]
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  6. Lena Edlund, 2005. "Sex and the City," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 107(1), pages 25-44, 03. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Gould, Eric D. & Paserman, M. Daniele, 2003. "Waiting for Mr. Right: rising inequality and declining marriage rates," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 257-281, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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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. Aloysius Siow, 2009. "Testing Becker's Theory of Positive Assortative Matching," Working Papers tecipa-356, University of Toronto, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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