对惩罚婚外情的经济学分析

本文就对婚外情实施法律惩罚的可能效果进行了经济学的分析。婚姻是一种受法律保护的长期合同,离婚是解除这一合同的惟一合法手段,而婚外情则是违约。但是,惩罚婚姻违约不一定能增加社会中高质量的婚姻,本文的分析表明,惩罚婚外情只有在离婚成本较低的情况下才能起到好的效果;当离婚成本很高时,它要么惩罚的对象更可能是感情执着的正人君子,要么迫使他们更愿意选择不结婚。中国的离婚成本很高,对婚外情实施法律惩罚难以达到增加高质量婚姻的目的。     

夫妻侵权民事责任理论与实践问题探析

夫妻侵权行为,是指婚姻关系存续期间,夫妻一方以作为或不作为的方式侵害其配偶合法权利,并使对方的人身、财产乃至精神方面遭受到直接损害的一种侵权行为。由于侵权人与受害人之间为夫妻关系,夫妻侵权与一般侵权行相较而言具有一些特殊性。我国《婚姻法》针对夫妻侵权设立了离婚损害赔偿制,但存在适用范围界定不清、适用情形过窄,排除了混合过错及第三者的适用,排除了婚内侵权损害赔偿等缺陷。今后在《婚姻法》修改时应明确离婚损害赔偿也适用于协议离婚,并扩大使用范围,引入夫妻共同财产强制终止制度。     

Transfers among divorced couples: evidence and interpretation

An analysis of the economic impact of divorce settlements in the United States is presented using data for a white cohort taken from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. "The effects of spouses' incomes on the divorce transfer are estimated and used to simulate the welfare effects of divorce on husbands, wives, and children under alternative assumptions about marriage contracts and the ability of a couple to continue coordinating resources in the aftermath of divorce. We find a positive (negative) relationship between divorce transfers and the growth of husband's (wife's) earnings during marriage. The estimated expenditure on children in the divorce state is only half the accustomed level during marriage."     

What is an Australian Job Worth?

The value of a job is an important issue for management, human resources, law and public policy, yet we lack good empirical estimates of this value. This article presents a theoretical framework for valuing jobs and estimates the average economic value of an Australian job at approximately $104,000. However, judges awarding compensation for unfair dismissal under the Fair Work Act implicitly value a job at around $10,000. If the economic value estimate is correct then workers place a high value on keeping their job, which has important human resources management implications, such as worker commitment and risk-taking.     

Marriage and trust: some lessons from economics

This paper examines the role of marriage as an institution forproviding couples with the confidence to make long-term investmentsin their relationship. No-fault divorce has undermined the notionof marriage as a contract, thereby reducing the security offeredby marriage and promoting opportunism by men. This has weakenedthe bargaining power of wives, both within marriage and whendivorce occurs. Current legal reforms will improve the economicposition of all divorced wives, including those who are primarilyresponsible for the breakdown of their marriage. The latterfeature will encourage opportunism by women and make men lessprepared to invest in their marriage. The paper argues thatthe only way to achieve parity between men and women, and deteropportunism by either sex, is to return to fault-based divorce.Both divorce settlements and the custody of children shoulddepend on preceding marital conduct.     

Marriage,Divorce and Prostitution: Economicc Sociology in Medieval England and Enlightenment Spain

“Marriage, Divorce and Prostitution: Economicc Sociology in Medieval England and Enlightenment Spain” by Robert B. Ekelund,Jr., Donald R. Street and Audrey B. Davidson.

This paper studies the medieval insititutions of marriage, divorce and prostitution through the prism of the economic sociology and rent-seeking behaviour on the part of the medieval Roman Catholic Church. Regulation by Church or state-Particular prohibitions and regulation of recontracting – created costly alternatives and substitutes for low-cost recontracting of marriage vows. In addition to a brief survey of the instititional situation in medieval England, we bring to light the economic sociology of the Spaniard Francisco de Cabarrùs relating to the marriage market and marital utitlity. Indirectly we suggest that exogenous restrictions in marriage markeers create unappropriated costs and the impetus for change in social institutions over time over time.     

Unemployment,marriage and divorce

In this article, we examine whether the business cycle plays a role in marriage and divorce. We use data on Spain, since the differences between recession and expansion periods across regions are quite pronounced in that country. We find that the unemployment rate is negatively associated with the marriage rate, pointing to a pro-cyclical evolution of marriage; however, the response of the divorce rate to the business cycle is mixed. Results show the existence of different patterns, depending on geography: divorce rates in coastal regions are pro-cyclical, while in inland regions divorces react to unemployment in a counter-cyclical way.     

More on Marriage,Fertility, and the Distribution of Income*

According to Pareto (1896) , the distribution of income depends on “the nature of the people comprising a society, on the organization of the latter, and, also, in part, on chance.” In the model developed here the “nature of the people” is captured by attitudes toward marriage, divorce, fertility, and children. Singles search for mates in a marriage market. Married agents bargain about work, and the quantity and quality of children. They can divorce. Social policies, such as child support requirements, reflect the “organization of the (society).” Finally, “chance” is modeled by randomness in income, marriage opportunities, and marital bliss.     

Explaining the Growth of Divorce in Great Britain

This paper tests whether the liberalisation of divorce law or economic factors can explain the post-war growth of divorce rates in Great Britain. Timing differences regarding the dates of legal innovations in England & Wales relative to Scotland are exploited to test for divorce law effects. No effect on marital dissolution of extending the grounds for the divorce can be detected, though other innovations in family law have had a powerful but generally temporary impact on divorce rates via their effect on transaction costs and settlement rules. Economic theory suggests that rising relative wages of women have reduced the gains from remaining married by inter alia diminishing the benefits of household specialisation and that rising real earnings of women have increased post divorce welfare by providing a measure of financial independence. The results are consistent with the real, but not the relative, wage hypothesis.     

FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE,BUT HOW ABOUT A RECESSION?

In light of the current economic crisis, we estimate hazard models of divorce to determine how state and national unemployment rates affect the likelihood of a divorce or separation. With data in the United States over the 1978–2008 period from the 1979 NLSY, we find some evidence indicating that a higher unemployment rate increases the risk of a marriage ending for couples in years 6–10 of marriage (suggesting counter‐cyclical divorce/separation probabilities) but has no significant effect for couples in years 1–5 of marriage and those married longer than 10 years. The estimates are generally stronger in magnitude when using national instead of state unemployment rates and when considering just divorces rather than the first observed divorce or separation. (JEL J12)     

Marriage,Divorce, and Interstate Risk Sharing*

In this paper, we study the importance of marriage for interstate risk sharing in the US. We find that US federal states in which married couples account for a higher share of the population are less exposed to state‐specific output shocks. Thus, in addition to improving the allocation of risk at the individual level, marriage also has implications for risk sharing at the more aggregated state level. Quantitatively, the impact of marriage on interstate risk sharing varies over divorce regimes.     

Divorce as a risky prospect

In 1910, the divorce rate per 1000 members of the US population stood at 0.9. ^{1 1}Histroical divorce rates can be found in the Statistical Abstract for the US (1981). . This rate showed a slow upward trend for the next 50 years, and by 1960 had more than doubled to 2.2. It took only 20 years for the rate to more than double again so that by 1980, the rate was 5.3. For the last 20 years, the marriage rate, by contrast, has experienced mild fluctuations between 10.0 and 11.0 per 1000 in the population with no discernible trend. If the same pattern for both rates holds until the year 2000, the annual number of divorces will exceed the annual number of marriages.

Although sociologists have researched divorce extensively, only a few economic studies exist. This is unfortunate since divorce is likely to have considerable impact on economic vaiables such as hours of work, labour force participation, human capital accumulation, work performance and earnings. ^{2 2}For a recent study of hours at work and labour supply, see Green and Quester (1982); for studies on earnings and work performance, see Santos (1975) or Hoffman and Holmes (1976). King (1982) argues that couples anticipating divorce will individually invest more heavily in human capital since the costs of any current investment are at least partially absorbed by the spouse. Without denying the influences of peer groups, social norms and role models, it seems reasonable to suggest that pecuniary considerations may also help to explain divorce.

A search through the economics literature uncovered only two studies of the determinants as opposed to the implications of divorce: one by Orcutt, Caldwell and Wertheimer (1976) and another by Becker, Landes and Michael (BLM) (1977). The study by BLM is by far the most widely cited of the two. The authors of both studies argue that the current state of marriage is the primary determinant of divorce. BLM, for example, assert that ‘the probability of divorce is smaller the greater the expected gain from marriage, and the smaller the variance of the distribution of unanticipated gains from marriage’. BLM, in other words, view marriage as a risky investment with a distribution of returns. The alternative is divorce which, by implication in BLM, involves a certain return.

The first contribution of this study is to draw the implications for an alternative view in which the investment in marraige is certain, but the investment in divorce is risky.

The second contribution lies in presenting formal expected utility-maximizing models of an individual and/or a couple contemplating divorce which can be tested empirically. The thrid contribution is the method developed to test the predictions of the models.

The paper of follows a simple format. Section I presents the models. Section II provides an explanation of the data used in the empirical tests. Methodology and results are presented in sections III and IV. Caveats are observed in section V. The final section closed with a summary of the arguments and evidence.     

Using the law to change the custom

The custom often acts as a powerful hindrance to equity-increasing changes. In this paper, we present a simple model of legal dualism in which a progressive legal reform can, under certain conditions, shift the conflicting custom in the direction intended by the legislator. Formal law then acts as an outside anchor that exerts a 'magnet effect’ on the custom. We also characterize the conditions under which a moderate reform performs better than a radical one in improving the welfare of the disadvantaged sections of the population. We illustrate our insights using examples on inheritance, marriage, and divorce in Sub-Saharan Africa and India.     

Why Do Women Wait? Matching, Wage Inequality, and the Incentives for Fertility Delay

This paper explores the interaction between wage inequality and the marriage and fertility decisions of young women. We develop an equilibrium search model of marriage, divorce, and investment in children that allows for differential timing of fertility. We show how patterns of fertility timing in U.S. data can be explained by the incentives for fertility delay implied by marriage and labor markets. We find that these incentives help explain both the cross-sectional relationship between women's wages and fertility timing and the changes over the past 40 years in married women's fertility timing and labor supply. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: J12, J13.     

Female earnings and the divorce rate: a simultaneous equations model

Economists have contributed a great deal of research, both theoretical and empirical, to the study of marital formation and dissolution. Many empirical examinations of marriage and divorce rates exist based on Becker's seminal contributions to the literature. All of these divorce studies are single equation models, with female earnings assumed exogenous. As discussed by Becker (1981), however, causality may run in the opposite direction as well: the divorce rate may influence female earnings. This paper estimates a simultaneous equations model in which divorce rates and female earnings are the jointly endogenous variables. Data are by state, for 1960, 1970, 1980 and 1990. The state-wide divorce rate equation is an extension of Waters and Ressler (1999), and the specification of a state-wide earnings equation follows standard human capital theory. The specification of joint endogeneity between female earnings and the divorce rate allows valid inferences to be made regarding the effect of female earnings on divorce for the first time. Most previous single equation studies of divorce have found that increases in female earnings significantly increase divorce rates. A simultaneous equations model will allow inferences to be made regarding the possibility of joint determination, which may cause a reevaluation of previous results.     

Do children of the first marriage deter divorce?

In terms of economics, individuals divorce if their expected gains from marriage fall short of their expected utility outside the current marriage, and children represent a marriage-specific type of investment, which generally increases the value of marriage for the spouses. However, children may also disrupt marital stability as they will induce dramatic changes into the household allocation of money and time. In particular, children conceived before or after first marriage may be valued differently by the spouses and this may lead to marital conflicts. It is difficult to assign a priori the direction of the effect of children on marriage stability, and causality may run either way, as couples who anticipate a separation are more likely to have fewer children than those who are happy together, while children born before first marriage may be associated with a lower marriage attachment of their parents. Here, we follow an empirical approach and take advantage of the richness of the data on pre-marital history from the 24 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth79, to estimate the effect of children conceived before or after first marriage on marital stability. We find a significant deterrent effect of young children conceived during first marriage to the likelihood of divorce, while children conceived before first marriage are found to have a disruptive effect on marital stability.     

Marriage, commitment and divorce in a matching model with differential aging

This paper analyses a matching model of the marriage market with directed, on-the-job search. Everyone is born attractive but “matures” according to a Poisson process into unattractiveness. Marriages between equally attractive people are stable but mixed marriages are not. The implied patterns of marriage and divorce are consistent with those identified in the empirical literature. When the utility from being single is low, in order to commit to their relationship, attractive people in mixed marriages may voluntarily divest of their attractiveness.     

Marriage Settlements

French couples may choose between two types of marriage settlements governing asset ownership after a divorce or inheritance: common property or separate property. A cooperative model considers the marriage contract as a means of providing for widowhood of the less endowed spouse. A second model addresses the probability of divorce and the production of a marriage good. The common property contract then becomes a means of inducing the wife to invest in the marriage good. Choice of contract, labor supply and fertility are simultaneous. Empirically we find that characteristics of the spouses such as relative age or differences in endowments influence the choice. So do the expected number of children and the wife's labor supply decision. This last decision is also shown to be influenced by the chosen settlement, while fertility is not.
JEL classification : J 12; J 4; K 12     

For better or for worse: the long-term effects of postwar mobilization on family formation

This article estimates the long-term legacies of female labour force mobilization on women’s family formation outcomes such as marriage, age at first marriage and divorce. We identify the long-term marriage effects of female labour force mobilization by exploring postwar mandatory employment in Germany. Using difference-in-differences analysis, we find that participation in postwar reconstruction efforts increased women’s probability of being currently married, ever married and marrying at younger ages. We also find that postwar employment had no differential effect on divorce rates of the affected cohorts of women. These results persist after accounting for the potential changes in the composition of the population, demand for female labour, war relief payments and postwar state-specific policies.     

试论民间借贷中借出方权益的自我保护

民间借贷是指公民与公民之间、公民与法人以及其他经济组织之间的借贷,是具有广泛群众性和深远传统性的信用补偿机制."民间借贷"不同于"非法集资",合法的民间借贷是受国家法律保护的,民间借贷在社会经济活动中不可或缺.但是,由于民间借贷具有自发性、随意性、风险性,一旦遇到情况变化,非常容易引发纠纷,造成诸多社会问题.因此,公民在出借资金时应注意保护自身的合法权益,以避免不必要的借贷纠纷发生,使民间借贷活动在社会经济发展中发挥其应有的积极作用.