Wedding-Driven Markets
The engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton has thrilled tabloid newspapers around the world, but the effects may be more far-reaching than you realize.
The engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton has thrilled tabloid newspapers around the world, but the effects may be more far-reaching than you realize.
You’ve probably heard the latest marriage narrative: With the recession upon us, young lovers can’t afford to marry. As appealing as this story is, it has one problem: It’s not true.
Fran Blau is one of my favorite labor economists in the world: She’s smart, savvy, tackles important problems, and also incredibly generous in helping younger scholars and colleagues with their own research. She is now also the winner of this year’s IZA Prize in Labor Economics.
The Gores belong to the most often divorcing generation in US history.
The companies Tiger Woods endorsed – and their shareholders – are feeling the negative effects of his extramarital affairs. A new company called Off the Market, reports CNBC’s Darren Rovell, hopes to take advantage of this development by helping athletes keep their existing relationships “positive and sexy.”
What can polygamy on the outskirts of Russia tell us about the effects of the financial crisis in less remote locales?
Ten percent of Arkansans have been married three or more times, double the national average. That’s according to new data from the Pew Center. Arkansas also has one of the lowest median ages for first marriage: 26. If you’re looking for marital stability, look no further than New York State, where the “serial marriage” share is among the lowest in the country, at 2 percent (tied for last place with New Jersey and Massachusetts).
Dubner and I both made a huge mistake: we got married before Freakonomics came out.
Economists see markets at play everywhere. Even in your romantic life. Indeed, I’m one of the worst guests that you can invite to your wedding. Why? Because while most of your guests are listening for your love story, I’m listening for your contract.
Many improvements in technology shift the production possibility frontier outward. Many of these increase human happiness, and a few do this by increasing marital harmony (Viagra?).
One piece of technology my wife and I just acquired does all of these while saving that most precious of all things — time:
While no longer relevant today, one might think that raising the price of marriage licenses could have the beneficial effect of deterring spur-of-the-moment marriages. Of course, like so many restrictions, it might also have a negative unintended consequence: it might increase the number of out-of-wedlock births.
The efficiency gains from marriage are well known. It’s also true that for most couples they grow over time.
In the delightfully sophomoric movie Clerks 2, Randal tells Dante, “Odds are there’s someone out there who’s a better match for you than the girl you are about to marry.” Even if Dante engaged in the most thorough possible search for a wife (which he certainly didn’t in the movie), Randal’s statement is correct.
Andrew Cherlin has a new book coming out today called The Marriage-Go-Round. He’s a first-rate sociologist, and so I’m looking forward to reading it. But for now, he’s teasing us with the following striking fact: Take two children, one growing up with married parents in the United States, and one growing up with unmarried parents in Sweden; which child has . . .
| Polling guru Nate Silver has built a regression model, based on demographic and political trends, to forecast when a majority of the voting public in each of the 50 states might vote against a gay-marriage ban, or vote to repeal an existing one. His findings: by 2016, most states will have legalized gay marriage, with Mississippi alone holding on . . .
When your co-author is your colleague and also your significant other, confusion often follows. Take this recent post by Arnold Kling on the causes of inequality, where he says: I think that Betsey Stevenson/Justin Wolfers marriages are another big factor. That is, when highly educated men start looking for wives who are stimulating companions as opposed to kitchen-floor moppers, this . . .
Are business schools good for their graduates? (HT: Theodore Pappas) Calling all data crunchers: a grant opportunity. (HT: Brian Kelsey) Police stop two German children attempting to elope to Africa. (Earlier) Are fire sprinklers really necessary? (Earlier)
Dr. Richard Batista‘s wife’s health was failing, and so was their marriage. To save them both, he offered to be the kidney donor his wife Dawnell badly needed. Dawnell recovered, but their marriage didn’t. A few years later she filed for divorce. Now her husband says he wants his kidney back. If he can’t have it, he wants a payment . . .
My wife announced yesterday that she is “traveled out.” I’m not surprised — I am too: Since mid-August we’ve taken trips (mostly long weekends) to Istanbul, Munich, French Switzerland, northeast Italy, Amsterdam, Dublin, London, Barcelona, and, starting tomorrow, Paris plus London again.
See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die. In “Proposition 8 — The Musical,” Neil Patrick Harris argues “there’s money to be made” — from weddings (and subsequent divorces) if California legalizes same-sex marriage. But my coauthor Jennifer Gerard Brown beat him to the punch. In “Competitive Federalism and the Legislative Incentives to Recognize Same-Sex Marriage” 68 S. CAL. . . .
This morning’s inbox leads me to two observations: 1) There is some excellent research out there about marriage and divorce. 2) There is no shortage of ways for imaginative advocates to distort the findings of this research. Let me begin with the first point: an intriguing paper by Elizabeth Ananat and Guy Michaels, forthcoming in the Journal of Human Resources. . . .
With this third and final post, we wrap up our day of divorce. Find our other D-day contributors here and here. History shows that we Americans generally like to elect politicians who have a stable family life, or at the least the appearance of one: a spouse, perhaps a couple of children, etc. Among candidates running for national and statewide . . .
As a Valentine’s Day present to my wife, Jeannette, I flew her to romantic Council Bluffs, Iowa, and bought her an entry into the High-Heeled Poker Tour event being played there over the weekend. These are women-only events, with the winner taking home the coveted “high-heel” necklace. Just so she understood that this truly was a Valentine’s gift to her . . .
A breakdown of current inflation psychology. VP of biofuels company to chat online about ethanol production. (Earlier) The link between women’s hairstyles and the Japanese economy. Tech pioneer predicts human-robot marriages to happen in the next 50 years.
When I tell my non-economist friends that I do research on the “economics of the family,” they often look puzzled. (The funniest response comes from those who think that this is the same as “home economics“; as Betsey Stevenson will tell you, I surely would have failed home ec.) But Tim Harford is a lifesaver, and his new book provides . . .