The optimal balance between keeping marriages intact, despite spousal conflict, and allowing for divorce is a subject of policy debate in the United States. To explore the trade-offs, I construct a structural model with information asymmetries, which may generate inefficient outcomes. Parameters are estimated using data from the National Survey of Families and Households. I find that eliminating separation periods decreases the conflict rate by 9.2% of its baseline level and increases the divorce rate by 4.0%. Perfect child support enforcement decreases the frequency of conflict and divorce by 2.7% and 21.2%, respectively, and reduces the incidence of inefficient divorces.

We investigate the effectiveness of initiating deposit insurance at the outset of a banking crisis. Using a conjoint analysis approach that allows us to consider the simultaneous impact of multiple deposit insurance attributes and various counterfactuals, we ask a multinational sample of respondents how they would view hypothetical account profiles following the failure of a large competing bank. Previous experience matters: respondents from countries without explicit deposit insurance exhibit greater withdrawal risk, suggesting that the introduction of deposit insurance during a crisis may be only partially successful in preventing bank runs. They also impose a higher deposit interest rate premium. Having a long-term bank relationship reduces withdrawal risk, as does the absence of co-insurance.