Table 2

Impact of Marriage Law and Distance from Mississippi Border

Marriages
1
Log CBR
2
Enrollment
3
Distance inverse X post138.37
[67.162]**
−11.19***
(1.587)
185.8***
(42.53)
Inverse of distance to Mississippi border−240.53
[68.91]***
7198***
(1.367)
−79.61**
(39.34)
Post (=1 if year ≥ 1957)−3.485
[1.645]**
−0.233***
(0.0238)
4.698***
(0.563)
Fixed effects usedState, Year
ControlsManufacturing wage, farms per 1,000 people, percent employed in manufacturing
Mean of dependent variable10.023.00680.29
R-squared0.080.5050.427
Observations903903586
  • Notes: Marriages are marriages per 1,000 in population, births are log births per 1,000 in population, and enrollment is the percentage of 14–17-year-olds enrolled in school. Distance (in miles) is computed using latitude-longitude information on counties and distance to the closest Mississippi county is computed using the Haversine formula. Mississippi is excluded from these regressions, as all points within Mississippi have a distance of 0. Counties from neighboring states of Mississippi used.

  • * significant at 10 percent;

  • ** significant at 5 percent;

  • *** significant at 1 percent, robust standard errors, clustered at the county level