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Author: Gould, Eric D.
Resulting in 2 citations.
1. Gould, Eric D.
Marriage and Career: The Dynamic Decisions of Young Men
Working Paper, Department of Economics, Hebrew University, May 2004.
Also: http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~sauerr/seminar_papers/marriage_career_may2004.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Department of Economics, Hebrew University
Keyword(s): Divorce; Educational Returns; Marriage; Occupational Choice

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This paper estimates the returns to career decisions in the marriage market and the returns to marital choices in the labor market. Theoretically, investments in the labor market could affect the chances of receiving a marriage offer, the type of offer, and the probability of getting divorced. Also, marital status could affect one's outcomes in the labor market, most notably the "marriage premium" in wages. To untangle this simultaneous decision-making process, I develop a dynamic programming model of the joint career and marital decisions of young men between the ages of 16 and 39. The results show that labor market decisions are strongly influenced by their returns in the marriage market. If there were no returns to career choices in the marriage market, men would tend to work less, study less, and choose blue-collar jobs over white-collar jobs. These results suggest that the existing literature underestimates the true returns to human capital investments by ignoring their returns in the marriage market. In addition, the results show that the "marriage premium" is much lower than traditional OLS estimates, and is virtually non-existent for higher wage men. This result suggests that while marriage may make low wage men more serious about their careers, marriage has little effect on high wage men who are already highly motivated.
Bibliography Citation
Gould, Eric D. "Marriage and Career: The Dynamic Decisions of Young Men." Working Paper, Department of Economics, Hebrew University, May 2004.
2. Gould, Eric D.
Weinberg, Bruce A.
Mustard, David B.
Crime Rates and Local Labor Market Opportunities in the United States: 1979-1997
Review of Economics and Statistics 84,1 (February 2002): 45-61.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3211738
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Keyword(s): Crime; Employment, Youth; Labor Force Participation; Male Sample; Simultaneity; Unemployment Rate; Unemployment, Youth; Wages; Wages, Young Men

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

The labor market prospects of young, unskilled men fell dramatically in the 1980s and improved in the 1990s. Crime rates show a reverse pattern: increasing during the 1980s and failing in the 1990s. Because young, unskilled men commit most crime, this paper seeks to establish a causal relationship between the two trends. Previous work on the relationship between labor markets and crime focused mainly on the relationship between the unemployment rate and crime, and found inconclusive results. In contrast, this paper examines the impact of both wages and unemployment on crime, and uses instrumental variables to establish causality. We conclude that both wages and unemployment are significantly related to crime, but that wages played a larger role in the crime trends over the last few decades. These results are robust to the inclusion of deterrence variables, controls for simultaneity, and controlling for individual and family characteristics.
Bibliography Citation
Gould, Eric D., Bruce A. Weinberg and David B. Mustard. "Crime Rates and Local Labor Market Opportunities in the United States: 1979-1997." Review of Economics and Statistics 84,1 (February 2002): 45-61.