TY - JOUR PY - 1998// TI - No-fault laws and at-fault people JO - International review of law and economics A1 - Brinig, Margaret F. A1 - Buckley, F.H. SP - 325 EP - 340 VL - 18 IS - 3 N2 - Absent transaction costs, the Coase Theorem suggests that divorce reform would work no change in the frequency of divorce but perhaps would alter the distribution of marital wealth. However, divorce does involve substantial process costs, which no-fault lowered. This paper explores the question of what happened to state divorce rates because of the legal changes wrought by the family law revolution that began in the 1970s, isolating the effect of the legal variable from other demographic and social factors that might also explain the variation in divorce rates across states and across time.
LA - SN - 0144-8188 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0144-8188(98)00008-8 ID - ref1 ER -