Marriage Markets and Assortative Mating with Household Public Goods: Theoretical Results and Empirical Implications
分析当婚姻收益来自家庭公共品消费时的婚姻市场均衡，证明财富上存在正向选型配对，而工资上公共品效应与专业化效应相互抵消，有助于解释为何贝克尔预测的工资负向选型配对缺乏实证支持。
This paper analyzes marriage market equilibria when the gains from marriage result from joint consumption of household public goods. Assuming transferable utility within marriage, the paper proves that marriage markets will be characterized by positive assortative mating on wealth when spouses differ only in endowments and the gains to marriage result only from public goods. When spouses differ in wages and household public goods are produced at home, the results imply offsetting effects, with public good economies creating an incentive for positive assortative mating on wages and gains from specialization creating an incentive for negative assortative mating on wages. The results help explain the persistent lack of empirical support for Becker's prediction of negative assortative mating on wages, and have implications for empirical analysis of all joint living arrangement decisions.