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Pierre André Chiappori (Columbia) "Family Economics" - Cemmap

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0<br />

6. Uncertainty and Dynamics in the Collective model 279<br />

Utility Frontier in<br />

Marriage θ + θ < 0<br />

Utility Frontier in Divorce<br />

M<br />

h w<br />

D<br />

FIGURE 6.2. Pareto frontiers in marriage and divorce, no public goods<br />

the spouses, both in marriage and after divorce - not the divorce decision<br />

itself. 19<br />

The corresponding intuition is easy to grasp from Figure 6.2. Under<br />

transferable utility, both the Pareto frontier when married and the Pareto<br />

frontier when divorced are straight line with slope −1. Therefore, they<br />

cannot intersect; one Pareto set must be included within the other. The<br />

optimal divorce decision simply picks up the larger Pareto set. What legal<br />

dispositions can do is vary the post divorce allocation along the post divorce<br />

Pareto frontier. But if the latter is located within the Pareto set when<br />

married, there always exist a particular redistribution of marital surplus<br />

that will make both spouses better off than divorce; if, conversely, it is<br />

located outside, then whatever the planned allocation of resources within<br />

the couple, it is always possible to redistribute income after divorce in such<br />

a way that both agents prefer separation.<br />

Finally, it is important to understand the assumptions that are needed for<br />

the Becker-Coase theorem to hold. <strong>Chiappori</strong>, Iyigun and Weiss 2007 (from<br />

now on CIW) show that there are three. One is that utility is transferable<br />

within marriage (which, in our setting, justifies the GQL form taken for<br />

19 A recent attempt to test this theoretical prediction is Wolfers (2006).<br />

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