Law Commons^™

Trading At Divorce: Preferences, Legal Rules And Transactions Costs, Margaret F. Brinig, Michael V. Alexeev

Journal Articles

For almost ten years, legal commentators have been aware of the possibility of applying economic bargaining principles to the problems of negotiations at the time of divorce. Although some cases and journal articles have mentioned the Mnookin and Komhauser article suggesting that custodial time and financial assets might be exchanged, attempts to apply the analysis have been confined to description. No one has attempted an empirical study to see if there really are trade-offs between custodial time and marital assets at the time of divorce, and there has been no formal model describing the process.

Furthermore, there has been no …