Do Taxes Affect Marriage? Lessons from History

Abstract

Abstract I examine how income taxes affected individuals’ marriage decisions in the mid-twentieth century using variations across U.S. states arising from the Revenue Act of 1948. Prior to the Act, the federal income tax produced marriage “bonuses” in some states, but marriage was tax neutral in the rest of the states. The Act extended the same marriage bonuses to the remaining states, without changing the regime in those states already enjoying bonuses. I use a difference-in-difference design to analyze the effect of the Act. I enrich the framework with an additional control group: lower-income Americans. For this group, marriage was income tax neutral throughout the period in every state. Using this additional control group, I employ a triple-difference design. In both the difference-in-difference and triple-difference designs, I find that extending marriage bonuses increased marriage rates among eligible men substantially.