| dc.description.abstract | In the first chapter of this thesis, I develop a model that combines intrahousehold
bargaining with competition on the marriage market - once married,
spouses bargain over the allocation of total household income. They
have the option of divorce and subsequent remarriage; the value of this outside
option is determined endogenously on the marriage market. I use this
model to analyse the educational choice. When more women than men obtain
a university degree, men without degrees benefit; university educated
men, however, are not able to translate this change on the marriage market
into a significantly larger share of household income. Hence, men's incentive
to invest in education decreases if women's educational attainment increases.
Even without assuming any heterogeneity in tastes between men and women,
equilibria arise in which men and women decide to become educated at different
rates.
The second chapter shows empirically, that a woman's propensity to separate
from her partner depends positively on male wage inequality on her local
marriage market - the more heterogeneous potential future mates are in terms
of earnings power, the more likely a woman is to end her relationship. This
effect is strongest for couples, where one has a college education but the other
one does not. The effect is robust to the inclusion of a variety of controls on
the individual level, as well as state and time fixed effects and state specific
time trends.
The third chapter (co-authored with Julio Robledo) develops a two period
family decision making model in which spouse bargain over the allocation
of individual time and consumption. If inter-temporally binding contracts
are not feasible, household time allocation might be inefficient. We compare
two threat point specifications, and show that the threat point specification
can influence spouses time allocation, not only the distribution of private consumption. | en_US |
