Seminario CEDE - Paulina Restrepo

We examine shifts in the U.S. marriage market, assessing how online dating, demographic changes, and evolving societal norms influence mate choice and broader sorting trends. Using a targeted search model, we analyse mate selection based on factors such as education, age, race, income, and skill. Intriguingly, despite the rise of online dating, preferences, mate choice, and overall sorting patterns showed negligible change from 2008 to 2021.

Seminario CEDE - Hoyt Bleakley

In the Antebellum United States, “free soil” areas had greater economic development than the areas where slavery was legal, yet free farming did not displace slave-based agriculture in the slave states. Was free soil a “magic dirt,” or could free farms compete in the slavery-legal region? We consider three classes of tests. First, we construct, separately for the two regions, suitability indices using soil and climate endowments. The indices suggest free-soil techniques could have prospered in the Upper South.