Abstract The U.S. income tax code encourages marriage for some and discourages marriage for others, but same-sex couples were only recently exposed to these incentives. We estimate marriage responses by exploiting variation in the recognition of same-sex marriages for tax purposes versus earlier papers leveraging smaller changes. Using the American Community Survey, which reports cohabitation and marriage, we estimate a significant though very small marriage elasticity, with further analysis suggesting a higher (though still small) elasticity for low-earning households and in response to federal taxes specifically. Our estimates imply that the 2018 tax reform will increase marriage among high-earning cohabiting couples.

Using College and Beyond data and a variant of Dale and Krueger’s matched-applicant approach, we revisit the question of how attending an elite college affects later-life outcomes. We expand the scope by examining additional outcomes and not restricting the sample to full-time workers. For men, controlling for selection eliminates the relationship between college selectivity and earnings; there are also no effects on men’s educational attainment or family outcomes. We find significant effects for women: attending a school with a 100-point-higher average SAT score increases women’s probability of advanced degree attainment and earnings while reducing their likelihood of marriage.