This paper makes five contributions to the modeling of societies organized primarily according to age. First, it models the social rules adhered to by a particular age-group society, the Rendille of Northern Kenya. Second, it shows that their age-group rules are well represented by the standard...

From Africa through North America to Asia, anthropologists have found societies with formalized age-group systems. In these societies, social and economic relations between individuals are regulated by well-established rules governing transitions through the lifecycle. In this paper we detail...

Birth order effects are found in empirical work, but lack theoretical foundations. Our new approach to modelling children provides this. Each child has the same genetic make-up and parents do not favour a child based on its birth order. Each child’s needs change as it grows, and births are...

We examine the allocation of spending by divorced parents on both private goods and goods which they share with their child. Sole and joint custody arrangements differ in the pattern of shared goods. Parents play a non-cooperative game. We compute the putcomes under sole and joint custody, and...