Digital Commons Network^™

Essays On Institutions Governing Marriage And Outcomes Over The Life Cycle, Sounak Thakur

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I study how institutions that govern marriage can affect marital choices and economic decisionmaking within marriage. The institutions that I study encompass both formal institutions, like laws that govern family formation, or more informal ones, like customs mandating the amount and direction of transfers at marriage or the level of commitment within marriage. This thesis consists of three chapters, and each chapter tackles a specific research problem under the broad research agenda. In the first chapter of my thesis, I study how changes in divorce and property division laws affect the rates of marriage formation, marital sorting …