Overview
Betsey Stevenson is a labor and family economist, formerly at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and later at the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. She is best known for her collaborative work with Justin Wolfers on the economics of marriage, divorce, and family structure. She served as chief economist of the U.S. Department of Labor (2010–2011) and as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers (2013–2015).
Key Contributions / Features
- Marriage and Divorce survey (Stevenson and Wolfers 2007): canonical empirical survey of 150-year U.S. marriage and divorce trends; proposed the consumption-complementarities theory of modern marriage as a replacement for Becker's production-complementarity model; documented the post-1981 divorce decline, the education "divorce gap," and the racial marriage gap as an entry rather than dissolution phenomenon.
- Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law (Stevenson and Wolfers 2006): Quarterly Journal of Economics paper showing that the adoption of unilateral divorce laws — despite minimal long-run effect on divorce rates — reduced female suicide and domestic violence by shifting bargaining power toward women within marriage.
- Divorce investment effects (Stevenson 2007): documented that unilateral divorce laws reduced marriage-specific investments (including joint home ownership and wives' labor market participation within marriage), consistent with a model where legal regime shapes the terms of the marital contract.
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