4:00-5:30 pm on Wednesday, Oct 17th, 2012
608 Academic Hall, CUFE
Abstract
We use a natural experiment in Taiwan to test the economic consequences of excess men. With the defeat of the Kuomintang Party in China, more than one million soldiers and civilians, mainly young males, retreated to Taiwan in the late 1940s. Initially, the soldiers were not allowed to marry. The ban was relaxed in 1959, however, suddenly flooding the marriage market with a large number of eligible bachelors. Using data from multiple sources, we find that during times of high marriage competition, young men were more likely to become entrepreneurs, work longer hours, save more, and amass more assets.