题目：Information Asymmetry, Ability, and Age at First Marriage

演讲专家：邓卫广 （湖南大学经济与贸易学院助教授）

时间：2018年6月26日（周二）下午 3:00-4:30

地点：大学城经济与管理学院文2栋301

论文摘要： We build a simple model that integrates two types of contrary hypotheses on the relationship between wage and age at first marriage to explore how individuals make marriage decisions under information asymmetry. Using a Chinese adult twins data set, we employ the difference between identical and non-identical twins to identify the entire ability effect, and then utilize the different compositions of ability effects between wedding-time wages and current wages to distinguish ability income effect from ability revelation effect. Our empirical results provide several insights into the secret of age at first marriage. First, with information asymmetry, an individual with high realized wages marry early, whereas an advantageous-prospect individual will marry late; consistently, individuals obtaining a high wage growth rate at their young ages marry early, while individuals expecting a rapid wage growth in the future will marry late. Second, ability positively and negatively influences age at first marriage by wages and by channels other than wages, respectively; this suggests that information asymmetry exists in the labor market and people can accurately differentiate the marriage quality of an individual by observing his/her performances in addition to wages. Finally, a strong relationship exists between wages and men's age at first marriage; however, such a relationship is weak for females.

专家简介：

邓卫广，香港中文大学经济学博士(2014)，现为湖南大学经济与贸易学院助理教授。他的主要研究领域为劳动经济学、卫生经济学、应用计量经济学，现在主要关注人力资本、代际关系、婚姻、同群效应等研究议题，也涉足发展经济学、中国经济问题、公司治理研究领域。其研究成果见于《经济研究》、《经济学季刊》、Journal of Comparative Family Studies等国内外期学术刊。主持和参与国家自科基金项目、湖南社科联项目等科研课题十余项。