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Abstract:
Because of the financial and social hardship faced after divorce, most people assume that generally husbands have instigated divorce since the introduction of no-fault divorce. Yet women file for divorce and are often the instigators of separation, despite a deep attachment to their children and the evidence that many divorces harm children. Furthermore, divorced women in large numbers reveal that they are happier than they were while married. They report relief and certainty that they were right in leaving their marriages. This fundamental puzzle suggests that the incentives to divorce require a reexamination, and that the forces affecting the net benefits from marriage may be quite complicated, and perhaps asymmetric between men and women. This paper considers women's filing as rational behavior, based on spouses' relative power in the marriage, their opportunities following divorce, and their anticipation of custody.

Abstract:
Though married women have steadily increased their labor force activity, most continue to do the bulk of the housework. However, due to increases in life expectancy and declines in fertility, homemaking is no longer a lifetime career for women as a group. Without a wife who specializes in homemaking, married couples must balance the responsibilities for such tasks in new ways. In recent years, husbands have assumed greater responsibility for routine housework. This research investigates the consequences of husbands' involvement in women's tasks, and wives' involvement in men's tasks for the stability of their marriages. We show that women's work endangers marriages, regardless of which spouse does it. Greater involvement in traditionally female housework by either partner is associated with higher chances of divorce or separation. However, the consequences of the time that husbands and wives spend in various tasks is strongly conditioned by perceptions of fairness.

Abstract:
This paper considers the affect of amendments to state divorce laws that strengthen their joint custody preference. It does so in the context of suits by noncustodial parents challenging substantive custody standards not requiring equal custody at divorce. The complaint is that most custody laws, by using a best interests standard rather than equally dividing custodial time, violate substantive due process. Further, two states, Iowa and Maine, have recently amended their custody legislation to strongly presume joint physical custody.

After setting out the constitutional problem and describing the legislation in some detail, this paper tests the effects of the change in the Oregon statutes. Policy-makers might well want to know how children fare under joint custody as opposed to other possible visitation arrangements. In other words, does the child's best interests, the hallmark of most current statutes, itself require joint custody? Empirical results from a broad national survey suggest that a close relationship with a non-custodial parent is significant in relieving various kinds of negative outcomes for adolescents, but that frequent over night stays, beyond once or twice a year do not matter much.

Policy-makers might also question whether the stronger legislative preference really increases joint custody awards. Does its requirement that mediation alternatives be suggested (and, in some cases, ordered) in fact increase the number of cases that are settled by mediation? Do judges sometimes prescribe mediation in cases that are inappropriate (such as those in which domestic violence orders have been entered)? Do children receive less child support under the new statutory scheme? Is there evidence that the process makes divorce less painful and less expensive? Empirical results on Oregon suggest that while even small statutory changes have large effects, they are not necessarily the ones that motivated the legislation. The broader goal here is to suggest that changes in family law, while often made, are seldom systematically assessed. Society needs such accountability, particularly when children are involved. I show one way it might be done.

Divorce, child custody, legislation, empirical studies, public choice, joint custody, joint custody presumption, equal joint custody, equal protection, parental rights

Abstract:
While most contracts are made between two parties in search of profit and without substantial government scrutiny, some are not so happy. This project examines one such species, the interconnection agreement entered into under the 1996 Telecommunications Act. After discussing the history and requirements of the statute, the paper hypothesizes that instead of the more typical profit maximization motive, the dominant party, in this case the incumbent local service provider, might seek to minimize losses. As in other cases where there is substantial uncertainty, parties to interconnection agreements might also be expected to cluster payment terms around some common patterns, or focal points.

The empirical section of the paper investigates these hypotheses through the complete set of 140 contracts entered into in Michigan between various phone companies entering the local phone market, called CLECs, and one local incumbent provider, SBC. Not only does the paper look at what determines various contract terms, but also it examines through Michigan Public Service Commission minutes, litigated cases and contract amendments what characteristics predict whether the parties can successfully adjust over time or whether they continue to experience conflict.

contracts, telecommunications, bargaining, empirical, relational contracts

Abstract:
One of the haunting claims of each poor, unmarried mother in Edin and Kefalas' Promises I Can Keep is that at least she can guarantee she will love her child, even though she cannot promise to make a lifelong commitment to a mate. That love, each young mother says, will be a sustaining gift both to her and the child. Similarly, in work done by sociologists McLanahan and Garfinkel to counteract the claim that it was not single parenting that made children's prospects dim, but poverty, sociologists have found that many of the bad effects of single parenting go away when wealth is taken into account.

So, is love the answer here, or is it wealth? Does a legal marriage (let alone a two-tiered marriage) even matter, at least insofar as children's welfare is concerned?

My recent empirical work with sociologist Steven Nock indicates that in fact love, measured in terms of parental warmth, is important to children's psychological well-being. We are using the Child Development Survey portion of the PSID (from the University of Michigan), which contains nearly 2700 children in a nationally representative sample. Love continues to remain important both in terms of impact and statistically though other variables are added. Wealth, measured in terms of total family wealth divided by the census needs standard for a family of that size, initially seems important to child wellbeing (on measures of depression, acting out, self-esteem and self-efficacy). However, unlike love, wealth's significance entirely disappears once family structure and particularly legal status like marriage and adoption comes into play.

'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all., wrote Tennyson, and, we find, better to have married even if the marriage does not work out than never to have married. Children do better if they are in two parent, married homes, but are worse off in homes where their mothers never married even than in cases where the mother married, divorced, remarried and was widowed. Similarly, children do better where their fathers are living in the home, but less well with stepparents unless the stepparents adopt them. Children who live with relatives (let alone foster parents) do less well than those who are adopted by third parties.

These rather dramatic findings suggest that law and public policy (as an instrument of law) should encourage and support marriage, particularly marriages that last. (They also suggest supporting adoption rather than foster care, though that is not the subject of this conference.) Law can do this in part merely by leaving well enough alone - by NOT adopting domestic partnership laws that equate unmarried, cohabiting couples with those that are married, and by NOT getting rid of special privileges enjoyed by the married when academics clamor that such benefits are not fair. Law ought also to make pre-marriage counseling and skills building more attractive and affordable, as some states have done through lower license costs, and some sort of real counseling effort requisite to divorces on non-fault grounds, as the covenant marriage movement suggests. Laws can be written to require mutual consent for divorce, or to become two-tier on the birth of children, so that the waiting period for no-fault separation and divorce lengthens.

Families, children, parents, norms, race, love, status, marriage, adoption

Abstract:
Norms in families, at least in the sociological sense of community recognition of family institutions, comes when the community finds, or predicts, two important characteristics: the permanence of the relationship, and the unconditional love within it.

When it finds permanence and unconditional love, society trusts that the relationship in question will do what it is supposed to do. For couples, that means promoting intimacy. For parents, that means trust that they will provide an environment within which children can flourish. Once the society trusts the relationship enough, various legal and other supports will encourage and promote the relationship.

One set of interesting questions is why some relationships that possess the first two characteristics aren't recognized by the wider community - that is, by becoming legal families. To name some of these, we might consider committed same-sex couples or what the ALI calls "de facto parents".

Another, and the one we'd like to focus on here, involves what happens when someone who was in a legal family no longer is, or no longer is in the fullest sense. The particular individuals we'd like to consider are noncustodial fathers, though we could envision similar outcomes for noncustodial mothers, birth parents following adoption or any parents once their children are emancipated. What the empirical work shows is that it is losing the community trust and recognition of a custodial parent that causes a significant amount of depression in divorced men. So one important lesson is that it is critical to look at feelings (not just behavior, not just financial costs/benefits)

A second empirical observation is at least suggestive of what happens when the law tries to put a "fix" on a problem that is perhaps intractable. Many of these fathers have for the last twenty years or so been made "joint legal custodians." So part of my project is to determine whether that title, which was seemingly a low-cost solution, mediates the unhappy effects of loss of custodial status. (Judith Seltzer, using the same dataset, has shown that joint legal custody has marginal effects on child support receipt or visitation.)

We find that marriages break up when at least one member of the couple no longer trusts the other. So long as trust remains, spouses tolerate large "balances" in terms of the divisions of household and labor force responsibility. But once they focus on the here-and-now, the relationships become less stable. If a wife loses trust in her husband (usually if she no longer believes he is acting unselfishly, quite often, she files for divorce. (In fact, work published in October by sociologists Sayer and Bianchi shows that her satisfaction with the relationship is significant in predicting divorce, while his is not.) Though she loses financially by divorcing, she keeps (if she has custody) not an asset but the third party trust and autonomy that goes with being a custodial parent (married or single). He gains financially, but will be depressed by his loss of custody far more than by his simple loss of marital status.

In our latest research, we have found that noncustodial fathers are more depressed, controlling for divorce, education, and changed income. Having a legal agreement giving custody to the other parent (which, while maintaining that you are "fit," impliedly means that you are less trustworthy in the normative sense), not only is statistically significant at less than .01, but also has the largest or one of the largest standard coefficients in each equation. In practical terms, loss of custody through a legal agreement or decision increases depression by about 4 points or 1/4 of a standard deviation. Incidentally, we'd predict a similar increase in depression for women who lose custody. Unfortunately in the NSFH sample there were so few of them that results are not statistically significant.

We have also run precisely the same regressions using an additional variable, joint legal custody. Lawmakers and attorneys who dreamed up joint legal custody in the first place or who advise men to seek joint legal custody presumably do so in order to make them feel better, or to give them some role in their absent child's upbringing. They may also have thought, contrary to what Seltzer has found, that children would do better, either through increased visits or more faithful child support payments. Instead, our analysis suggests (though the result isn't statistically significant at .10) that those who receive joint custody (presumably more involved in the first place and sometimes even those who lose a contested case) are more depressed than those who simply lost custody between the first and second waves. Of the 380 couples affected by legal agreements, 204 had a joint custody arrangement.

While we would have liked to see what happens with joint physical custody, the number of couples who had some form of this in our data was so tiny, 34, that no conclusions could be drawn. This suggests an avenue for future research, albeit research that cannot be done with the NSFH. The results also suggest that the effect of joint legal custody, the most common award in many states, seems miniscule for children, negative for men and tedious at best for women (who must consult and seek agreement of their ex-spouses on many more issues).

Abstract:
This paper uses a unique data set on divorcing couples to analyze the effects of a change in legal entitlement within the family. In particular, we analyze the 1997 change to custody provisions in the state of Oregon. Previous to 1997, Oregon assigned custody based on the discretion of the court, in the best interests of the child. This was changed to a presumption of joint parenting, which manifests in the courts encouraging and imposing joint (or shared) custody in cases that otherwise would have had sole custody arrangements. By presumption is meant the court's starting point, and that arguments must be made to alter the court's position. We chose the state of Oregon for reasons of data availability and because there was an actual change in law. However, joint parenting laws are not restricted to one state. In fact, Iowa and Maine have also changed their law and there is legislative activity regarding joint parenting in most states. More than forty states (and the District of Columbia) have class action suits over equal treatment in custody awards.

Our emphasis in this paper is empirical, and we show quite clearly that changes to the legal presumption of custody were not neutral. The move to legal joint parenting led to changes in the allocation of children, not changes in side payments. We also show that the simple change in threat point led to many different responses in behavior. Our results are consistent with the general bargaining literature in terms of who benefits from a change in bargaining position, but the results show how complicated the manifestation can be. Thus, we empirically explore how this legal change led to changes in filing behavior, timing of divorce, custody arrangements, acrimony, accusations of wrongdoing, post-divorce court motions, and dollar transfers.

bargaining, divorce, Coase Theorem, joint custody, transaction costs, mediation, dispute resolution, child custody

Abstract:
This paper considers whether an amendment to state divorce laws that strengthens its joint custody preference operates as a traditional default rule, specifying what most divorcing couples would choose or as a penalty default rule the parties will attempt to contract around.

While the Oregon statutes that frame our discussion here, like most state laws, do not state an explicit preference for joint custody, shared custody is certainly encouraged by Section 107.179, which refers cases in which the parties cannot agree on joint custody to mediation and by Section 107.105, which requires the court to consider awarding custody jointly. In addition, 1997 legislation noted in its very first section that it was state policy to [a]ssure minor children of frequent and continuing contact with parents who have shown the ability to act in the best interests of the child. The effect of this legislation was to strengthen the power of noncustodial parents, since denial of access to the children would give the right to terminate spousal or child support, change the parenting plan, or obtain an award for makeup visitation. The legislative history for the bill shows that it was a compromise between men's rights groups and those concerned about domestic violence.

After setting out the problem and describing the legislation in some detail, the paper tests whether the change in the Oregon statutes is to what most people would want (in which case there should be a substantially higher percentage of joint custody awards after its enactment than before). If the legislation functions as a penalty default, there should be more mediation after the statute and more filings of domestic abuse petitions to avoid application of the rule. If it does not function as a default rule, one would predict an increase in various kinds of transaction costs, including more court filings generally. We might also find that the legislation acts to disfavor primary custodial parents (largely women) as Mnookin and Kornhauser's analysis would suggest (in which case there should be lower child support or property judgments than before enactment). What we find is some evidence of all these results, with quite strong effects even though this event study is hardly ideal since the 1997 changes in law were subtle and largely procedural.

Law and economics, contracts, default rule, joint custody, child custody, bargaining, empirical research, divorce

Abstract:
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe and classify each state's driver's licensing laws and then test whether the licensing laws affect the percentages of over-64 persons licensed and the proportion of older drivers involved in accidents to determine an optimal level of driving.

Design and Methods: This paper evaluates state driving rules, obtained from laws, regulations, and driver's manuals, tests, based upon Department of Transportation data, whether the type of laws affects driving and accident rates for those over 64 and suggests a uniform scheme combining self-reporting of driving problems, on-the-road tests of drivers who fall below safe driving standards, and individualized restrictions where these can enable drivers to safely operate vehicles.

Results: Rates of licensure for those over 64 years and of the proportion who are involved in traffic accidents vary widely among states. State licensing rules are divided among seven categories. Regression analysis shows a relationship between the licensing category and both rates.

Implications: A model (and thus uniform) driving statute is recommended, with final licensing responsibility resting with the Department of Motor Vehicles or equivalent agency and licensing based on an evaluation of actual driving performance.

driving, elderly, aging, vision, dementia, regulations, discretion, licensing, motor vehicles, efficiency

Abstract:
Davis v. Davis appears in many property books as well as some casebooks about family law. It features property rights in unique goods, and stimulates discussion about whether embryos should be the subject of court decisions, much less market transactions. Davis touches on ideas of commensurability, self, and dignity.

The story of Junior and Mary Sue Davis can also be seen as a cautionary tale about a family destroyed by lost pregnancies and the havoc this causes in a marriage. Once the centripetal forces reach gale strength, Davis turns into a power struggle at an elemental level, one in which middle class former spouses are willing to pay huge sums to litigate, and publicly vent their plight and their disaffection. What is most intimate and private becomes the subject of mainstream television programming, editorial commentary and continued fame, even 15 years later.

This piece will address the question about why having a genetic child first became so important that Junior and Mary Sue would spend more than their combined yearly salaries on IVF and the even more experimental cryopreservation technique. It will discuss why bearing a child might ultimately have become less meaningful than possessing the right to disposal of the frozen embryos, and thus why first Junior and then Mary Sue changed their minds.

Davis, embryo, cryopreservation, property, abortion, ART, artificial reproduction

Abstract:
In a recent series of opinions authored by Justice Stevens, the Court has recognized that children may have independent religious rights, and that these may be in conflict with their parents'. The questions for this piece are whether considering children's rights independently is a good thing whether it is warranted by children's actual religious preferences and whether children's religious activities actually do anything measurable for the children.

I do not advocate that the Supreme Court become more involved with family law than it has been since the substantive due process days of Meyer and Pierce. I am also not one to "abandon children to their rights" or otherwise suggest that children should fend for themselves without their parents' help. For me, a childhood without the nurturing environment of loving parents (or at least one parent) is dismal. However, I am encouraged that the Court seems to recognize that in families with children, the children's interests do need to be considered, and will not always mirror their parents'. Children's religious attendance does seem to make measurable differences to their well-being.

children, religion, empirical, parents, 'first amendment' rights

Abstract:
Family policy and the law based on it assume universals. That is, if marriage improves the welfare of the majority of couples and their children, it is worth pushing as a policy initiative. Further, laws will be written (or kept on the books) that privilege marriage over other family forms. Similarly, research that tells us that divorce harms children except following the relatively small number of highly conflicted marriages, spawns efforts to preserve troubled marriages or even to roll back liberal or relatively inexpensive divorce laws. With yet another example, since adopted children mostly do better than children left either in foster homes or in informal substitute caregiving situations, policymakers react by enacting legislation like the Adoption and Safe Families Act and streamlining (within constitutional limits) the procedures for terminating parental rights.

One reaction to this phenomenon is to enact default rules that cover the majority of cases, hoping that people who want to do something else will contract their way around the rules. First, policy makers need to choose the right default rules (and arguably do not do so). Still, perhaps this approach is a saner one than the chaos of tailoring family law to fit all our sizes and shapes. But the three examples in the preceding paragraph (marriage, divorce, and child welfare policy) all point to instances that are not good candidates for contracting.

The current inquiry reexamines some of what we might call universalist assumptions, concluding that despite good intentions and concern for equal rights, even these big and important policies do not always work the same way for all groups, at least in terms of their effects on children. As long as the laws' effects are not pernicious - that is, they do not adversely affect groups of children in their wake, perhaps there is nothing wrong with promoting these policies. But when they make things better for some children and worse for others, we do think someone should take another look. Sometimes the situation calls for exceptions to statutes, or sometimes further careful empirical studies. We offer evidence to suggest that similar circumstances involving adults' legal relationships have very different consequences for children of different races and genders. We have also shown that foster care (and 'kinship care') have different implications depending on children's race. In these and other situations, social science suggests that law applied equally will have different consequences.

divorce, marriage, adoption, children, race, gender, status

Abstract:
This paper examines the creation of the ability to give unconditional love (perhaps in tune with the theologians' definition of “best love”) and to discuss how laws might make this easier for children. Given my past work, it is perhaps not surprising that I see this as requiring permanence in the relationship. I hypothesize that children acquire this tendency (or longing, as Aristotle and Jennifer Roback-Morse would term it) as they see it around them. The most likely three relationships from which children can draw models of unconditional love are God's love, the parents' love for each other, and the parents' love for the child.

God's love is of course the model for all human unconditional love. We might see parents' response to it in frequency of church attendance or how important they say religion is in their lives. The ability of law (at least in the United States) to influence belief and the exercise of it is of course a delicate constitutional question. The law can certainly continue to not discriminate against religion and to allow such benefits as charitable tax deductions for religious contributions and tax exemptions for religious properties. Tuition vouchers are a help, too. But the controversy in Massachusetts surrounding Catholic Charities' adoption policies show how fragile this balance has become.

The parents' love for each other also can serve as a model for children. Other research, including my own, shows that unconditional love is most likely to flourish in marriage as opposed to cohabitation. It is also most evident in what Judith Wallerstein calls “The Good Marriage,” whose opposite is the “Separate Spheres” (or marriage reduced to its lowest common denominator) discussed by Lundberg and Pollock or the “exchange relationship” detailed in Gary Hanson's “Marital Exchange Relationship” piece in psychology. This love is threatened by any attempt to equate marriage and cohabitation (as with current Canadian law and the American Law Institute's Domestic Partnership proposals). It is strengthened by legal efforts to make marriages stronger, whether these are through requirements for premarital counseling or through tax and other subsidies based upon marital status (listed in, for example, the Vermont same-sex marriage case of Baker v. Vermont) and perhaps by laws that force couples to carefully think through the decision to divorce. From a nonlegal perspective, marriage is strengthened by increased support from extended family and the community, secular and religious.

The parents' love for him or her is perhaps the first unconditional love noticed by a child. We can see it in what the parent says about the child, what kinds of activities he or she does with the child, and how close the child feels to the parent, perhaps whether the child feels the parent stands up for him or her or acts as an advocate. From an absent parent, we can still get some glimpse of this love through continued contact, attendance at the child's activities, and even faithful payment of child support. From a negative perspective, we see the absence of unconditional love in parents who say they are disappointed with their child, who neglect their child (when they have the means of support), perhaps when they engage in custody battles and certainly when they abuse the child. Law can strengthen parental relationships with children. On the extreme, children in foster care are unlikely to see this love, and efforts should be made to either strengthen the family of origin or place the child in a permanent adoptive or kincare situation. Child abuse is criminal and serious, and should be taken seriously by the law and prevented where possible (including abuse by non-parent adults living in the home). For another example (of many), custody laws can be carefully drafted to minimize incentives for vindictive behavior and to promote relationships with noncustodial parents. We can continue to promote family autonomy so that parents in less stressed families can effectively allow their children to flourish.

This paper tests these ideas to the extent possible, finding that characteristics favorable to unconditional loving as adults are present in environments consistent with each of these models. I conclude with a number of policy recommendations to strength families and make them more permanent.

families, children, love, divorce, religion, parents, norms

Abstract:
Because the ALI Domestic Partnership rules don't seem to meet the criteria for default rules, we might be tempted to think of them instead as a set of penalty default rules, designed to insure that the parties would contract around them, or at least that they would reveal privately held information? This theoretical possibility was suggested in the commercial context by Professors Ian Ayres and Robert Gertner. Thus setting a default quantity at zero, as the UCC does, forces the parties to specify some other quantity. Similarly, setting the availability of consequential damages at zero forces the party for whom they matter to contract for their recovery (probably at a higher contract price). After reviewing the arguments against using Chapter 6 rules as a default rule in the typical sense, I'd like to discuss why even a penalty default explanation is not likely to work as a practical matter.

Further, it appears that to the extent that Chapter 6 was designed to give some relief to same-sex couples (certainly one of its goals), it may have the unintended consequence of moving states toward same-sex marriage. Were a state to desire such a change, they seemingly could do so directly by amending their statutes rather than dragging along the far larger number of cohabiting couples.

default rules, cohabitation, contracts, same-sex marriage, domestic partnerships

Abstract:
More than 1,600 Catholic elementary and secondary schools have closed or been consolidated during the last two decades. The Archdiocese of Chicago alone (the subject of our study) has closed 148 schools since 1984. Primarily because urban Catholic schools have a strong track record of educating disadvantaged children who do not, generally, fare well in public schools, these school closures have prompted concern in education policy circles. While we are inclined to agree that Catholic school closures contribute to a broader educational crisis, this paper shies away from debates about educational outcomes. Rather than focusing on the work done inside the schools, we focus on what goes on outside them. Specifically, using three decades of data drawn from the census and from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (“PHDCN”), we seek to understand what a Catholic school means to an urban neighborhood. We do so primarily by measuring various effects of elementary school closures in the Chicago neighborhoods where they operated for decades. We find strong evidence that Catholic elementary schools are important generators of social capital in urban neighborhoods: Our study suggests that neighborhood social cohesion decreases and disorder increases following an elementary school closure, even after controlling for numerous demographic variables that would tend to predict neighborhood decline and disaggregating the school closure decision from those variable as well. This paper discusses these findings and situates them within important land-use and education-policy debates.

School choice, externalities, schools, cities, churches, empirical, neighborhoods, social norms

Abstract:
Erik Craft's comment on our 2000 article takes up a minor point, the impact of no-fault divorce on the gender of the spouse filing for divorce. In the original article, we related the gender of the filing to rent exploitation during marriage, rent appropriation through divorce, and particularly child custody. We tested the hypotheses we generated using a sample of more than 46,000 divorce decrees from the only four states collecting all the information we needed. The type of divorce ground was only a control variable, and not a strong one. We argue that Craft's comment misses our essential point.

Abstract:
This paper makes a case for an integrated family, and more specifically for the formal, legally recognized statuses of husband/wife and parent/child. Children do better both in the short and long term if they live with married parents and if they are biological or adopted children of these parents. Children are particularly affected by the stability and permanence of their relationships, although they are famously resilient. Under any circumstances, parental warmth affects children significantly and positively. One of the more dramatic ways to see the influence of parental relationships involves mixed race marriages because they tend to be of shorter duration. The mixed race case, where children do fine only so long as their parents stay together, reveals the importance of community as well as intentions of parents for children's outcomes. Community includes the formal community denoted by legal status, the family's religious community (especially important for African-American families), and the peer community, which particularly influences older children. Stable marriages may provide a kind of buffer for fathers, who on their own may prefer sons to daughters.

family law, parents, empirical scholarship, fathers, children

Abstract:
This book will discuss the interplay of norms and families from a number of perspectives. It will tie theoretical and empirical observations to subjects of current law reform as varied as cohabitation, custody, grandparent visitation, payment for household work and domestic violence. Relevant norms and what is called social capital affect family members’ relationships with each other, that is, within the family community. They also govern the way outside communities interact with families, and social capital built within the family influences commercial and public relationships that do not directly involve families at all. Law reform, even from the best of intentions, often misfires because norms and the impact of social capital are not considered.

family, law and economics, law and society, social norms, social capital, empirical studies, marriage, adoption, domestic violence

Abstract:
This study by an interdisciplinary team at the University of Iowa finds that law - the way laws are written and treated by state regulators - does have a measurable effect on bureaucratic performance. That is, the care taken by legislatures and state agencies in developing domestic elder abuse law affects how lower-level bureaucrats do their jobs in investigating and reporting abuse. Perhaps more interesting, though, are two robust findings about state law-making behavior. Both legislator characteristics (in this case, the middle-aged or slightly older legislator) and lobbying by what would seem the most important interest group (in this case, the AARP) sometimes do not have the effect we might expect. At first blush, it would seem logical for these variables to predict greater concern for elders at risk of abuse. In fact, they have the opposite effect in some of the models regardless of the way particular equations are specified, whether or not they are interacted, or exactly how the variables are specified. We surmise that these legislators and lobbyists see other issues as more both more politically attractive and more pressing, since elder abuse is almost exclusively confined to the very old (over 85) and helpless. On the other hand, the presence of AARP lobbyists in state capitals consistently does predict more concern for the elderly at the administrative, rather than the legislative, level. The difference between legislative and regulatory lobbying may thus reflect the differing public scrutiny given to the two activities.

Abstract:
Work in law and in economics has long suggested that marriages will be more successful if they take advantage of specialization between husband and wife (Becker, 1974). If husbands and wives operate their marriages like trading nations, they could obviously reap large gains from trade if each spent time in its most productive use. In fact, research on married men shows both that they profit substantially from marriage in many ways and that they do better the more specialized, or "traditional," the marriage (Nock, 1998).

The last fifty years have worked dramatic changes in the options available to women, as the majority are now in the paid labor force for substantially all of their peak earning years (Spain and Bianchi, 1995). During this same time period, men?s options, as demonstrated by their labor force participation rates, have not changed much. In other words, women's lifetime labor patterns have changed dramatically, and now very much resemble men's. The hope of what used to be called the "women?s liberation" movement was to equalize the housework done by men and women. That way, women would not simply end up working "two shifts" of market and household labor (Hochschild, 1990).

This paper looks empirically at what happens when marriage relationships become more egalitarian. When both husband and wife work, will the relationships be more stable if they share household tasks? How much of marital instability is related to feelings of unfairness regarding the allocation of household chores and childcare? Does it matter for the stability of marriage whether men do "women's work" for the household or women "men's"?

We consider the two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households, compiled by demographers at the University of Wisconsin (Sweet et al., 1996). Of 13,000 households sampled, 7,984 included a married couple. Both adults were asked numerous questions in 1987-88, and again in 1992-93. We construct a model for the hazard of divorce for spouses in first marriages between the two waves of the study. We include as independent variables a number of factors that prior studies, including Becker, Landes and Michael (1977), use as predictors of marital instability. These include cohabitation prior to marriage, total marital fertility, education of husband and wife, prior marriage of husband and wife, prior divorces of their parents, age at marriage. To these we add factors related to husbands' and wives' labor force participation, their division of household labor (broken into nine categories), and their feelings at the time of the earlier survey about the fairness of the way household tasks, spending, and childcare were allocated in their particular marriage.

Laws do not usually regulate the allocation of household labor, but allow spouses to sort out the appropriate proportions themselves. One exception is the former East German FGB ? 10, which mandated equal sharing of household work. From the results of the study we might anticipate whether such laws would likely be successful (either in increasing the hours actually worked by husbands or in promoting better marriages). Assuming women will continue to participate in the labor force, we can also anticipate some of the likely effects of precommitment options (like the new covenant marriage)(Scott and Scott, forthcoming 1998), suggestions for financial recognition of household labor (Brinig, 1997; Silbaugh, 1996), or contracting out of what used to be "women's work" (Carbone and Brinig, 1991).

Abstract:
This Article offers new evidence on the determinants of U.S. unwed birth rates from 1975 to 1990. We show that higher illegitimacy rates are positively and significantly correlated with payments under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program. Our results are also consistent with explanations which attribute the increase in illegitimacy to a decline in community-based social sanctions, which form part of a state's social capital.

Abstract:
This article critiques divorce law irrelevance theories which hold that the shift from fault to no-fault divorce laws did not increase divorce levels. We show why from a theoretical perspective the reverse is more plausible; and present new evidence that the adoption of no-fault divorce laws did result in higher divorce levels.

Abstract:
Race to the bottom explanations of welfare policies suggest that the power to set welfare payouts should be assigned to the federal government. Such theories predict that states cut benefits levels when faced with an increased demand for welfare from welfare migrants. This Article's econometric study of the determinants of AFDC payouts finds no evidence that states react in this way. This suggests that states should be accorded the power to curtail welfare payments to new arrivals through residency requirements, an issue left as moot in Anderson v. Green.

Abstract:
This article offers new evidence on the determinants of U.S. consumer bankruptcy filing rates, which tripled from 1984 to 1991. We show that differences in state filing rates from 1980 to 1991 are not attributable to legal or common economic variables, but that one-third of the variance may be explained through social predictors.