Introduction

TL;DRAbstract

This book is a response to growing public concern about family breakdown, which is associated in the academic world with a burgeoning interest in marriage and divorce. Academic interest has spread beyond the conventional boundaries of socio-legal studies, and a new literature has emerged that draws on economic analysis to illuminate the dynamics of family formation and dissolution. This new approach is distinguished by the importance it assigns to incentives. Whereas other approaches mostly belittle the role of incentives, the economic approach gives them a central place in the analysis of marriage and divorce. Legal and other policy innovations that substantially alter the structure of incentives are presumed to have a significant impact on individual behavior and hence on the formation, operation, and dissolution of families.

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