Description:
I analyse a marriage market in which the output of two matched agents decreases with the difference in their types. Payoffs as a function of type are wavelike and only weakly connected to match quality. Where one side's payoff function is increasing, the other's is decreasing. If the couple are well matched, the gains from marriage are typically unequally distributed; when agents have outside options these marriages are fragile. Positive sorting occurs if the output function is concave but non-concavity leads to impure matching, with a mix of positive and negative sorting. I show how the payoff functions sustain impurity