I examine the portfolio allocations of women married in the years surrounding the 1870 Married Women's Property Act. The act, which gave women married after 1870 the right to own and control personal property, serves as a natural experiment to examine the extent to which individuals respond to changes in property law. I link wealth data to census information and find that, as a result of the act, women married after 1870 altered their portfolio allocations by shifting wealth-holding away from real property to personal property. The results indicate that the act greatly impacted the investment decisions of women.
I examine wealth-holding and the share of household wealth owned by women married in the years surrounding the 1870 Married Women's Property Act. The Act, which gave women married after 1870 the right to own and control personal property, serves as a natural experiment to examine the extent to which individuals respond to the law. I link wealth-holding data to census information and find that, as a result of the Act, women married after 1870 shifted their wealth-holding away from real property to personal property. Moreover, women married after the Act owned a larger share of household wealth than women married before the Act.
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