Divorce Costs and Marital Dissolution in a One-to-One Matching Framework With Nontransferable Utilities

In this paper, we use a two-period one-to-one matching model with incomplete information to examine the effect of changes in divorce costs on marital dissolution. Each individual who has a nontransferable expected utility about the quality of each potential marriage decides whether to marry or to re...

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Main Author: Ismail Saglam
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2013-03-01
Series:Games
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/4/1/106
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author Ismail Saglam
author_facet Ismail Saglam
author_sort Ismail Saglam
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description In this paper, we use a two-period one-to-one matching model with incomplete information to examine the effect of changes in divorce costs on marital dissolution. Each individual who has a nontransferable expected utility about the quality of each potential marriage decides whether to marry or to remain single at the beginning of the first period. Individuals married in the first period learn the qualities of their marriages at the beginning of the second period and then decide whether to stay married or to unilaterally divorce. We show that, for any society, there exist matching environments where the probability of the marital dissolution does not reduce divorce costs under gender-optimal matching rules. In such environments, an allocation effect of divorce costs with an ambiguous sign outweighs an incentive effect that is always negative. We also show that these results may also arise under stable matching rules that are not gender optimal.
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spelling doaj.art-20bd40781071488293d0c8b2caf0e3682022-12-21T18:58:57ZengMDPI AGGames2073-43362013-03-014110612410.3390/g4010106Divorce Costs and Marital Dissolution in a One-to-One Matching Framework With Nontransferable UtilitiesIsmail SaglamIn this paper, we use a two-period one-to-one matching model with incomplete information to examine the effect of changes in divorce costs on marital dissolution. Each individual who has a nontransferable expected utility about the quality of each potential marriage decides whether to marry or to remain single at the beginning of the first period. Individuals married in the first period learn the qualities of their marriages at the beginning of the second period and then decide whether to stay married or to unilaterally divorce. We show that, for any society, there exist matching environments where the probability of the marital dissolution does not reduce divorce costs under gender-optimal matching rules. In such environments, an allocation effect of divorce costs with an ambiguous sign outweighs an incentive effect that is always negative. We also show that these results may also arise under stable matching rules that are not gender optimal.http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/4/1/106One-to-one matchingstabilitymarriage dissolutiondivorceincomplete information
spellingShingle Ismail Saglam
Divorce Costs and Marital Dissolution in a One-to-One Matching Framework With Nontransferable Utilities
Games
One-to-one matching
stability
marriage dissolution
divorce
incomplete information
title Divorce Costs and Marital Dissolution in a One-to-One Matching Framework With Nontransferable Utilities
title_full Divorce Costs and Marital Dissolution in a One-to-One Matching Framework With Nontransferable Utilities
title_fullStr Divorce Costs and Marital Dissolution in a One-to-One Matching Framework With Nontransferable Utilities
title_full_unstemmed Divorce Costs and Marital Dissolution in a One-to-One Matching Framework With Nontransferable Utilities
title_short Divorce Costs and Marital Dissolution in a One-to-One Matching Framework With Nontransferable Utilities
title_sort divorce costs and marital dissolution in a one to one matching framework with nontransferable utilities
topic One-to-one matching
stability
marriage dissolution
divorce
incomplete information
url http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/4/1/106
work_keys_str_mv AT ismailsaglam divorcecostsandmaritaldissolutioninaonetoonematchingframeworkwithnontransferableutilities