The Optimal Reservation Utility in Models of Decision Making in Arranged Marriages

11 Pages Posted: 7 Feb 2005

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: December 2004

Abstract

The notion of a reservation quality or utility is a key feature of Batabyal's (2003a) recent analysis of decision making in arranged marriages. In this model, the magnitude of the reservation utility has a non-trivial impact on the decision to accept or decline a marriage proposal. Even so, Batabyal (2003a) treats the marrying agent's reservation utility as an exogenous variable. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to endogenize the reservation utility variable in the context of a dynamic and stochastic model of decision making in arranged marriages. Our analysis leads to two results. First, we demonstrate that the optimal reservation utility is the solution to a particular maximization problem. Second, we show that theoretical circumstances exist in which the optimal reservation utility is unique.

Keywords: Arranged Marriage, Decision Making, Optimal Reservation Utility, Uncertainty

JEL Classification: J12, D81

Suggested Citation

Batabyal, Amitrajeet A., The Optimal Reservation Utility in Models of Decision Making in Arranged Marriages (December 2004). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=637302 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.637302

Amitrajeet A. Batabyal (Contact Author)

Rochester Institute of Technology ( email )

Department of Economics, RIT
92 Lomb Memorial Drive
Rochester, NY NEW YORK 14623-5604
United States
5853134063 (Phone)
5854755777 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://people.rit.edu/aabgsh

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