Estimating the Economic Boost of Marriage for Same-Sex Couples in Louisiana
Extending marriage to same-sex couples in Louisiana would generate an estimated $28.3 million in spending to the state economy. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the most recent data available, 8,076 same-sex couples live in Louisiana. Of those couples, the Institute estimates that fifty percent (4,038 couples) would choose to marry in the first three years, a pattern that has been observed in Massachusetts and elsewhere. The marriages that would occur in the first year alone would bring about $18.1 million in revenue to the state of Louisiana that year.
The Business Boost from Marriage Equality in Massachusetts: Evidence from the Health and Marriage Equality in Massachusetts Survey
This brief draws on two sources of data, a survey and state-collected tax revenue data, and finds that marriages have had a positive economic effect on Massachusetts – likely providing a boost of over $100 million to the state economy. Same-sex couples’ weddings injected significant spending into the Massachusetts economy and brought out-of-state guests to the state, whose spending also added to the economic boost.
The Use of Qualitative Information in Macro-Economic Policy Analysis
The majority of macro-economic policy models takes for granted that conflicts among objectives can be assessed by means of a tradeoff analysis. Such tradeoffs imply that sacrifices and benefits of various impacts of decisions can be measured on a cardinal scale, so that a conventional macro-economic utility or welfare analysis can be applied.