Marriage as a Rat Race: Noisy Pre-Marital Investments with Assortative Matching

V. Bhaskar; Ed Hopkins

Marriage as a Rat Race: Noisy Pre-Marital Investments with Assortative Matching

School of Economics

Research output: Working paper › Discussion paper

Abstract

We study the incentive to invest to improve marriage prospects, in a frictionless
marriage market with non-transferable utility. Stochastic returns to investment
eliminate the multiplicity of equilibria in models with deterministic returns,
and a unique equilibrium exists under reasonable conditions. Equilibrium investment
is efficient when the sexes are symmetric. However, when there is any asymmetry,
including an unbalanced sex ratio, investments are generically excessive.
For example, if there is an excess of boys, then there is parental over-investment
in boys and under-investment in girls, and total investment will be excessive.

Original language	English
Publisher	Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series
Number of pages	35
Publication status	Published - 9 Aug 2011

Publication series

Name	ESE Discussion Papers
No.	210

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

marriage
ex ante investments
gender differences
assortative matching tournament
sex ratio
C72
C78
D62
H31
J12

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© Bhaskar, V., & Hopkins, E. (2011). Marriage as a Rat Race: Noisy Pre-Marital Investments with Assortative Matching. (ESE Discussion Papers; No. 210). Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series.
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1 Article

Marriage as a rat race: Noisy premarital investments with assortative matching
Bhaskar, V. & Hopkins, E., Aug 2016, In: Journal of Political Economy. 124, 4, p. 992-1045
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Marriage as a Rat Race: Noisy Pre-Marital Investments with Assortative Matching

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Marriage as a rat race: Noisy premarital investments with assortative matching

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