Untying the Knot: How Child Support and Alimony Affect Couples’ Dynamic Decisions and Welfare
Review of Economic Studies · 2024 · [{"name": "Hanno Foerster", "affiliation": ["Boston College", "IZA - Institute of Labor Economics"]}]
中文摘要
在许多国家，离婚法强制规定婚后须支付扶养费（子女抚养费和配偶赡养费），以保障已婚夫妻中收入较低一方在离婚后免受经济损失。本文研究扶养费支付如何影响夫妻的跨期决策与福利。我构建了一个包含家庭劳动供给、家庭生产、储蓄和离婚决策的动态模型，并利用丹麦的登记数据和调查数据对其进行估计。该模型刻画了政策权衡：一方面为收入较低一方提供保险，并使夫妻能够实现有效的专业化分工；另一方面维持离婚者的劳动供给激励。我利用估计得到的模型研究了多种反事实政策情景。我发现，与子女抚养费相比，配偶赡养费对劳动供给的抑制作用更为显著，且在提供消费保险方面效率较低。在现行政策空间内，福利最大化的政策是提高子女抚养费、降低配偶赡养费。我的结果表明，在此福利最大化政策之外，还可以实现帕累托改进，这凸显了子女抚养费与配偶赡养费政策常见实施方式的局限性。
Abstract
Abstract In many countries, divorce law mandates post-marital maintenance payments (child support and alimony) to insure the lower earner in married couples against financial losses upon divorce. This paper studies how maintenance payments affect couples’ intertemporal decisions and welfare. I develop a dynamic model of family labour supply, home production, savings, and divorce and estimate it using Danish register and survey data. The model captures the policy tradeoff between providing insurance to the lower earner and enabling couples to specialise efficiently, on the one hand, and maintaining labour supply incentives for divorcees, on the other hand. I use the estimated model to study various counterfactual policy scenarios. I find that alimony comes with more substantial labour supply disincentives compared to child support payments and is less efficient in providing consumption insurance. The welfare maximising policy, within the status quo policy space, involves increasing child support and reducing alimony payments. My results show that Pareto improvements beyond this welfare maximising policy are feasible, highlighting limitations of how child support and alimony policies are commonly implemented.