Is moving to the countryside a credible commitment device for couples? We investigate whether lowering the arrival rate of potential alternative partners by moving to a less populated area lowers the dissolution risk for a sample of Danish couples. We find that of the couples who married in the...

This paper shows that we can normalize job and worker characteristics so that, without frictions, there exists a linear relationship between wages on the one hand and worker and job type indices on the other. However, for five European countries and the United States we find strong evidence for...

We derive a structural index for labor market density based on the Ellison-Glaeser index for industry concentration. The labor market density index serves as a proxy for the number of workers that are potentially available for jobs in a particular area. The index is based on observed home-work...

This paper describes a search model with a continuum of worker and job types, transferable utility and an IRS contact technology. We apply a second order Taylor expansion to derive an analytical solution of the equilibrium. We find that one third of the increasing returns in contacts are...

Do people move to cities because of marriage market considerations? In cities

Is moving to the countryside a credible commitment device for couples? We investigate whether lowering the arrival rate of potential alternative partners by moving to a less populated area lowers the dissolution risk for a sample of Danish couples. We find that of the couples who married in the...

See 'On-The-Job Search, Mismatch and Efficiency', forthcoming in the 'Review of Economic Studies'.

This paper develops and tests a model where cities play an important role as marriage markets. The idea is simple. Cities are dense areas where singles can meet more potential partners than in rural areas. To enjoy those benefits, they are willing to pay a premium in terms of higher housing...

Divorce rates are higher in cities. Based on Danish register data, this paper shows that of the marriages formed in the city, those couples who remain in the city have a 23% higher divorce rate than those who move out. In this paper, we test whether this observation is due to sorting of more...