This paper characterizes the patterns of intergenerational mobility in the United States using data for matched parent/child pairs from the National Longitudinal Surveys. In general, what is found is far from the extremes of either perfect mobility or perfect immobility. Parents' log income explains only about 9 percent to 11 percent of the variation in children's log incomes. Earnings exhibit more mobility than does total income, and the difference is most striking for daughters. The paper also identifies the influence of family background characteristics on mobility. The addition of these background variables adds another 3 to 5 percent age points to the R2 in the intergenerational earnings and income regressions. Copyright 1992 by MIT Press.

In the popular press and among policymakers the effect of no-fault divorce laws on divorce rates remains an issue (see e.g., New York Times, 23 July 1991). In my 1986 article in this Review, I show that the adoption of one form of no-fault divorceunilateral divorce-does not lead to a significant increase in divorce rates.' The theoretical model that is consistent with this empirical evidence would imply that the new law does not decrease the costs of divorce. It merely redefines which party has the right to terminate the marriage.

This paper presents an empirical test of two contrasting models of contracting in marital relationships. The major distinction between the two models concerns the role of information. The first model assumes that ex post information about the value of opportunities outside the relationship is symmetric. The second model assumes that information is asymmetric. Each assumption leads to different implications about the effects of rules allowing unilateral versus mutual divorce decisions on the probability of initiating and terminating the marriage and on the distribution of marital resources at divorce. Copyright 1986 by American Economic Association.

Interactions between Unmarried Fathers and Their Children: The Role of Paternity Establishment and Child-Support Policies by Laura M. Argys and H. Elizabeth Peters. Published in volume 91, issue 2, pages 125-129 of American Economic Review, May 2001

We explore the impact of the child care tax credit in the U.S. income tax system on the labor supply decisions of married women with young children by incorporating the cost of child care into a structural labor supply model. Using data from the 1986 NLSY, we find that government subsidies to child care increase labor supply substantially. Our policy simulations show that an increase in the value of the child care tax credit (i.e., percent of expenditures subsidized) would have a much larger effect on labor supply than an increase in the annual expenditure limits of the subsidy or making the subsidy refundable.