Publications of Prof Grossbard in the area of Law and Economics of the Family
My writings on the law and economics of family cover a wide range of outcomes: the relative decision-making power of women, out-of-couple and unmarried motherhood, fertility, labor supply, time in household production, and couple formation. I have analyzed the possible effects of marital property division laws (such as community property), divorce laws, polygamy prohibitions, coverture placing women under the control of men, choice between regular marriage and common-law marriage, and choice between official and religious marriage.
I. Articles and Working Papers
II. Brief Essays
III. Example
I. Articles and Working Papers, by Principal Outcome of Interest
An outcome addressed by all articles is that of in-couple relative wellbeing of each spouse.
ON LABOR SUPPLY and TIME IN HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTION
“Mothers' Caregiving during COVID: The Impact of Divorce Laws and Homeownership on Women's Labor Force Status.” by Cynthia Bansak, Shoshana Grossbard, Crystal (Ho Po) Wong IZA Discussion Paper No. 14408, June 2021.
Abstract: We investigate women's likelihood of withdrawing from paid labor to care for children and help them with schoolwork as a result of COVID and school closures. Were women more likely to shift out of paid labor in states where property-division rules would better protect the financial interests of stay-at-home parents? Such higher protection is offered in states with community property regimes or with homemaking provisions, the alternative being equitable-division and no homemaking provisions. We use monthly data from the U.S. Current Population Survey and compare the labor force participation of women with children in grades K-6 between 2019 and 2020, before and after COVID started. We find an association between marital property laws offering women more financial protection and women's labor supply response to COVID-19, especially among non-immigrants.
Revisiting labor supply effects of sex ratio, income and wage. Effects of marriage-related laws. Chapter 6 in The Marriage Motive, 2015.
Shoshana Grossbard and Victoria Vernon. "Common Law Marriage and Male/Female Convergence in Labor Supply and Time Use", Research in Labor Economics, Vol. 41 on Gender Convergence in the Labor Market, pp. 143-175, 2015. [Reproduced as Chapter 7 in my book The Marriage Motive]
Shoshana Grossbard. "Repack the Household: A Comment on Robert Ellickson's Unpacking the Household," in Yale Law Journal Pocket Edition, April, 2007.
ON OUT-OF-COUPLE MOTHERHOOD AND FERTILITY
“Single Motherhood and the Abolition of Coverture in the United States” Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 161(1): 94-118 (with Hazem Alshaikhmubarak and Richard Geddes), March 2019.
Shoshana Grossbard and Victoria Vernon. "Common Law Marriage and Teen Births" J of Family and Economic Issues, March 2017, Volume 38, Issue 1, pp 129–145.
Olivia Ekert-Jaffe and Shoshana Grossbard. "Does Community Property Discourage Unpartnered Births?" European J of Political Economy 24(1):25-40, 2008.
ON DIVORCE
Shoshana Grossbard-Shechtman. "Marriage Market Models" in M. Tommasi and K. Ierulli (eds.), The New Economics of Human Behavior. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
ON MARRIAGE AND COHABITATION
Should Common-Law-Marriage be abolished in the USA? IZA World of Labor, May 2016. DOI:10.15185/izawol.256.
Shoshana Grossbard and Victoria Vernon. "Common Law Marriage and Couple Formation", Special issue in honor of Gary Becker, IZA Journal of Labor Economics 3:16, 2014.
Shoshana Grossbard. Report on Polygamy submitted to the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Canada. July 2010
"Polygamy and the Regulation of Marriage Markets" in The Polygamy Question, edited by Janet Bennion and Lisa Fishbayn Joffe Utah State University Press/University Press of Colorado, 2016.
Shoshana Grossbard. "Sex Ratios, Polygyny, and the Value of Women in Marriage—a Beckerian Approach", J of Demographic Economics, vol 81 (1), pp13-25, 2015.
Shoshana Grossbard. "Competitive Marriage Markets and Jewish Law," in The Economics of Judaism and Jewish Human Capital, edited by Carmel U. Chiswick and Tikva Lecker with Nava Kahana. Ramat-Gan, Israel: Bar Ilan University Press, (2002) Revised Version 2006.
Shoshana Grossbard-Shechtman and Bertrand Lemennicier. "Marriage Contracts and the Law-and-Economics of Marriage: An Austrian Perspective," Journal of Socio-Economics, 28: 665-690, 1999.
Shoshana Grossbard-Shechtman. Chapter 11: A Theory of Polygamy. in On the Economics of Marriage, 1993, 2019.
Amyra Grossbard-Shechtman. "Economics, Judaism, and Marriage," Dinei Israel, A Journal of Science and Jewish Law, 1986 (in Hebrew).
Amyra Grossbard-Shechtman. "A Theory of Marriage Formality: The Case of Guatemala," Economic Development and Cultural Change, 30(4): 813-830, 1982. [revised version appeared as Chapter 9 in On the Economics of Marriage, 1993, 2019].
Amyra Grossbard-Shechtman. "The Economics of Polygamy," in J. DaVanzo and J. Simon (eds.), Research in Population Economics, Vol. II. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1980.
Amyra Grossbard. "An Economic Analysis of Polygamy: The Case of Maiduguri," Current Anthropology, 17 (4): 701-707, 1976.
GENERAL
Shoshana Grossbard-Shechtman "The Economics and Sociology of Marriage: Historical Trends and Theories of In-Marriage Household Labor": in S. Grossbard-Shechtmand and C. Clague (eds.) On the Expansion of Economics, Armonk, N.J.: M.E. Sharpe. 2001.
II. Brief Essays
“Spousal Support as Spousal Worker Severance Pay” January 1994
“Price controls on nursing care in marriage.” November 1999
“Advocating for more rational laws about divorce” July 2019
III. Example
Proposition : Women are more likely to have a child out of marriage (couple) if laws make it less beneficial to be a married (coupled) vs an unmarried (uncoupled) mother (does not follow from other household economics models assuming couples make fertility decisions)