TY  - JOUR
AU  - Stevenson,Betsey
AU  - Wolfers,Justin
TI  - Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: Divorce Laws and Family Distress
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10175
PY  - 2003
Y2  - December 2003
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10175
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10175.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Betsey Stevenson
University of Michigan
Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
5224 Weill Hall
735 South State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-3091
E-Mail: betseys@umich.edu

Justin Wolfers
Department of Economics
University of Michigan
611 Tappan St
Lorch Hall #319
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Tel: 734-764-2447
E-Mail: jwolfers@umich.edu
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 2004-03-01
AB  - Over the past thirty years changes in divorce law have significantly increased access to divorce. The different timing of divorce law reform across states provides a useful quasi-experiment with which to examine the effects of this change. We analyze state panel data to estimate changes in suicide, domestic violence, and spousal murder rates arising from the change in divorce law. Suicide rates are used as a quantifiable measure of wellbeing, albeit one that focuses on the extreme lower tail of the distribution. We find a large, statistically significant, and econometrically robust decline in the number of women committing suicide following the introduction of unilateral divorce. No significant effect is found for men. Domestic violence is analyzed using data on both family conflict resolution and intimate homicide rates. The results indicate a large decline in domestic violence for both men and women in states that adopted unilateral divorce. We find suggestive evidence that unilateral divorce led to a decline in females murdered by their partners, while the data revealed no discernible effects for men murdered. In sum, we find strong evidence that legal institutions have profound real effects on outcomes within families.
ER  -