TELEVISIÓN Y DIVORCIO (BY ALBERTO CHONG & ELIANA LA FERRADA -BID-)

[Román Culebro Martínez]

This paper studies the link between television and divorce in Brazil by explotaing variation in the timing of availability of the signal of Rede Globo -the network that a virtual monopoly on telenovelas in the country- acroos municipal areas. Using three rounds of Census data (1970, 1980, 1991) and controlling for area fixed effects and for time-varying characteristics, the paper finds the share of  woman who are separated or divorced increases significantly after the Globo signal becomes available. The effects is robust to controlling for potential determinants of Globo´s entry strategy and is stronger for relatively smaller areas, where the signal reaches a higher fraction of the population.

 television%28telenovelas%29_y_divorcios.pdf