The impact of unilateral divorce law on murder

Date
2013
Authors
Juarez, Leticia
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Rossi, Martín A.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Universidad de San Andrés. Departamento de Economía
Abstract
This paper studies the effect of a law that enables the dissolution of marriage without mutual consent of both spouses on the rates of murder in United States. The analysis exploits the fact that states passed the law at different points in time. The variability across time and space in the implementation of the law offers a potential instrument in order to identify the causal effect of unilateral divorce law on murder rate. After controlling for state and year fixed effects, I find that the states which passed the law experienced an increase of 16 percent in murder rates.
Description
Fil: Juarez, Leticia. Universidad de San Andrés. Departamento de Economía; Argentina.
Keywords
Divorce -- Law and legislation -- United States. , Murder -- United States -- Statistics. , Divorcio -- Legislación -- Estados Unidos. , Asesinato -- Estados Unidos -- Estadísticas.
Citation