The Law and Economics of Marriage and Divorce

The key role of `incentives` in family law are considered in this economic approach to family law. The book discusses the possible adverse consequences emanating from faulty legal design, while demonstrating that good family law should provide incentives for consistent and honest behavior. Economists, specialists in the economic analysis of law, and academic lawyers discuss recent advances in specialist work on marriage, cohabitation, and divorce. This important new study will be of considerable interest to lawyers, policy-makers and economists concerned with family law.

1. Introduction Antony W. Dnes and Robert Rowthorn
2. Marriage: the long-term contract Lloyd R. Cohen
3. Marital commitment and the legal regulation of divorce Elizabeth S. Scott
4. Mutual consent divorce Allen M. Parkman
5. An economic approach to adultery law Eric Rasmusen
6. Louisiana`s covenant marriage law:
recapturing the meaning of marriage for the sake of the children Katherine Shaw Spaht
7. Cohabitation and marriage Antony W. Dnes
8. Marriage as a signal Robert Rowthorn
9. For better or for worse? Is bargaining in marriage and divorce efficient? Martin Zelder
10. Weak men and disorderly women:
divorce and the division of labour Stephen L. Nock and Margaret F. Brinig
11. Impact of legal reforms on marriage and divorce Douglas W. Allen
12. European divorce laws, divorce rates and their consequences Ian Smith.