Marriage and Economic Incentives
利用加州随机实验数据，研究福利水平对贫困女性婚姻决策的影响，发现低福利加高工作激励能促使已婚受助者维持婚姻，但对单身母亲结婚概率影响不大。
Can economic incentives be used to affect marriage behavior and slow the growth of single-parent families? This paper provides new evidence on the effects of welfare benefit levels on the marital decisions of poor women. Exogenous variation in welfare benefit incentives arises from a randomized experiment carried out in California that allows me to measure responses beyond simple year-to-year changes in benefit levels. I find that a regime of lower benefits and stronger work incentives encourages married aid recipients to stay married, but has little effect on the probability that single-parent aid recipients marry. The effects on married recipients become larger over time, suggesting that long-run effects may exist.