The Review of Economics and Statistics Vol. 106 No. 1 2024
Same-Sex Marriage Recognition and Taxes: New Evidence about the Impact of Household Taxation
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.
- DOI
- 10.1162/rest_a_01176
- Volume
- 106
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 85-101
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref