{"id":158,"date":"2007-04-03T06:45:29","date_gmt":"2007-04-03T14:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/2007\/04\/03\/an-economist-writes-on-love\/"},"modified":"2007-04-22T08:20:20","modified_gmt":"2007-04-22T16:20:20","slug":"an-economist-writes-on-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/whatever\/an-economist-writes-on-love\/","title":{"rendered":"An Economist Writes on Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

The letter to the Financial Times<\/em> went like this:<\/p>\n

Dear Economist,<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m looking for \u00e2\u20ac\u009dthe one\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Is he out there?<\/p>\n

Yours,<\/p>\n

Ruth, Barcelona<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And the answer, from Tim Hartford, the “Undercover Economist”<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Dear Ruth,<\/p>\n

It might help if we understand which elements of marriage are common to many potential husbands, and which are unique to \u00e2\u20ac\u009dthe one\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n

First, marriage offers economies of scale in production, particularly production of children. Husband and wife can each specialise in different skills, according to their comparative advantage. I fail to see why you cannot realise these economies of scale with almost anyone. Second, there are economies of scale in consumption. One garden will do, so will one kitchen.<\/p>\n

The real question, then, is whether you can stand the person you marry enough to enjoy these efficiencies. Here, economics had little to say until a recent breakthrough by the economists Michele Belot and Marco Francesconi. They examined data from a speed-dating company, and discovered, unsurprisingly, that women like tall, rich, well-educated men. Men like slim, educated women who do not smoke.<\/p>\n

The more intriguing finding emerged when pickings were scarce. Women \u00e2\u20ac\u009dticked\u00e2\u20ac\u009d about 10 per cent of men as worthy of further investigation, regardless of the quality of a particular crop. If the men were short and poor, then the women lowered their standards, and still picked 10 per cent. The men, too, abandoned unrealistic ambitions. They \u00e2\u20ac\u009dticked\u00e2\u20ac\u009d about a quarter of the women, regardless of quality. This happened even though each could have a complimentary speed date another time if he or she found no one they liked.<\/p>\n

My conclusion: even when there is little to be lost from maintaining standards, people are very quick to lower them. My advice: do likewise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The letter to the Financial Times went like this: Dear Economist, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m looking for \u00e2\u20ac\u009dthe one\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Is he out there? Yours, Ruth, Barcelona And the answer, from Tim…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}