Abstract
We analyze the interaction of black-white race with physical and socioeconomic characteristics in the US marriage market, using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. We estimate who inter-racially marries whom along anthropometric and socioeconomic characteristics dimensions. The black women who inter-marry are the thinner and more educated in their group; instead, white women are the fatter and less educated; black or white men who inter-marry are poorer and thinner. While women in ìmixedî couples Önd a spouse who is poorer but thinner than if they intra-married, black men match with a white woman who is more educated than if they intra-married, and a white man Önds a thinner spouse in a black woman. Our general Öndings are consistent with the ìsocial status exchangeîhypothesis, but the Önding that black men who marry white women tend to be poorer than black men who marry black women is not.