The ant or the grasshopper? The long-term consequences of Unilateral Divorce Laws on savings of European households

Viola Angelini, Marco Bertoni*, L. Stella, C. Weiss

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)
151 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Unilateral Divorce Laws (UDLs) allow people to obtain divorce without the consent of their spouse. Using the staggered introduction of UDLs across European countries, we show that households exposed to UDLs for a longer period of time accumulate more savings. This effect holds for both financial and total wealth and is stronger at higher quantiles of the wealth distribution. Consistent with a precautionary motive for savings, we also find that exposure to UDLs increases female labour supply, numeracy, trust in others and dispositional optimism. (C) 2019 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)97-113
Number of pages17
JournalEuropean Economic Review
Volume119
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct-2019

Keywords

  • Divorce risk
  • Household savings
  • Europe
  • FINANCIAL LITERACY
  • RETIREMENT
  • RATES
  • SELECTION
  • MARRIAGE
  • OPTIMISM
  • CHILDREN
  • IMPACT

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