The Law and Economics of Marriage and Divorce

by Edited by Antony W. Dnes , Robert Rowthorn

• ISBN13: 9780521809337
• ISBN10: 0521809339
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-03-25
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

What sort of contract is marriage? What does it offer the parties? What are the difficulties of enforcement, and the result of failed effective enforcement? This book takes an economic approach to marriage and divorce, considering the key role of 'incentives' in family law: it highlights the possible adverse consequences emanating from faulty legal design, while demonstrating that good family law should provide incentives for consistent and honest behavior. Economists, specialists in the economic analysis of law, and academic lawyers discuss recent advances in specialist work on marriage, cohabitation, and divorce. Chapters are grouped around four topics: the contractual perspectives on marriage commitment; the regulatory framework surrounding divorce; bargaining and commitment issues relating to marriage and near-marriage arrangements; and finally empirical work, which focuses on the impact of more liberal divorce laws. This important new study will be of considerable interest to lawyers, policy-makers and economists concerned with family law.

Table of Contents

List of tables and figure	vii
List of contributors	viii
Introduction	1	(9)
Antony W. Dnes
Robert Rowthorn
Marriage: the long-term contract	10	(25)
Lloyd R. Cohen
Marital commitment and the legal regulation of divorce	35	(22)
Elizabeth S. Scott
Mutual consent divorce	57	(13)
Allen M. Parkman
An economic approach to adultery law	70	(22)
Eric Rasmusen
Louisiana's covenant marriage law: recapturing the meaning of marriage for the sake of the children	92	(26)
Katherine Shaw Spaht
Cohabitation and marriage	118	(14)
Antony W. Dnes
Marriage as a signal	132	(25)
Robert Rowthorn
For better or for worse? Is bargaining in marriage and divorce efficient?	157	(14)
Martin Zelder
Weak men and disorderly women: divorce and the division of labor	171	(20)
Steven L. Nock
Margaret F. Brinig
The impact of legal reforms on marriage and divorce	191	(21)
Douglas W. Allen
European divorce laws, divorce rates, and their consequences	212	(18)
Ian Smith
Index	230