Testing Becker’s Prediction on Assortative Mating on Spouses’ Wages
利用台湾数据，通过样本选择技术纠正样本截断并估算非工作女性的潜在工资，发现控制样本截断和交叉生产力效应后，配偶工资的偏相关可能为负，为贝克尔关于负选型婚配的预测提供了初步支持。
It is often believed that spouses’ wages are positively related even when other traits such as age and education are controlled. This is mainly based on the observation of two-earner couples. This paper uses the standard sample selection technique to correct for the sample censoring and to compute potential wages for nonworking women. Using data from Taiwan, it is found that after accounting for sample censoring and cross-productivity effects, there is weak evidence that the partial correlation between spouses’ wages can be negative. This lends first weak but direct support for Becker’s prediction of negative assortative mating on spouses’ wages.