[The following is a transcript of a radio interview, dated 14th February 2017, on the topic of Economics of Love & Marriage]*
Kirsty: I’d like to welcome our guest, Dr Watson. Duncan is an applied economist at the University of East Anglia. An award-winning academic who, I’m told, is most proud of being unbeaten against his students in the annual footballing tournament. Welcome to the show Duncan!
Duncan: Thanks Kirsty. It’s a pleasure. Talking to you, mind you, means I can’t take my better half out for Valentine’s. You’ve saved me a shedload of money.
Kirsty: [laughs] Apologies to Mrs Watson, but let’s get to why you’re here. On this special day, what can you tell us about love?
Duncan: Let’s try to be all encompassing and separate it into three possible life cycle elements: finding a partner, getting married and then employing family lawyers to secure an advantageous divorce. Starting with courting, lets suggest that we have a simple search problem. Not much different to looking for a job, there are two specific factors to consider. First, your preferences. What do you find desirable in a mate? There will be numerous characteristics that you favour so you’ll have to weight them. Aggregating across those weighted values, you’ll derive their desirability score. Second, the constraints that you are operating under. You will be constrained by the extent that others also find you desirable. Potential partners will also evaluate your desirability score. The higher that you score, the stronger your market position. To begin with, set yourself the minimum score that you’re prepared to accept. As your score rises, that minimum can also rise. You’ll search until an agreed match is secured which exceeds the reservation partner. Of course, this might not be the end, there could be further speculation afterwards. Cheating could well result in a better equilibrium. I wouldn’t recommend that mind you, information flows help locate the shark.
Kirsty: But what type of partner does all this involve? Let’s take the cliché: opposites attract. Is that necessarily the case?
Duncan: Consider it in terms of assortative mating. There are two possibilities. There is negative assortative mating. Here, you strive for difference. People with different skills sets can complement each other. That can enhance overall family production. Then there is positive assortative mating. People with common interests and similar tastes will agree more on what to do and what to buy. That improves the consumption side of the family. Evidence does suggest that the latter often dominates. The highly educated, for example, tend to marry each other. Even then it isn’t necessarily clear-cut. For example, I chose someone with a Doctorate in English Literature. There’s less income potential in such a partner, but I’ve certainly gained from her skill-set. Economists, after all, speak in numbers and therefore may need a boost in the communication stakes.
Kirsty: Ok, then let’s move on to your second issue. Tell me about marriage.
Duncan: The orthodox view pitches it as a two-person firm achieving economies of scale in production by taking advantage of division of labour. We specialise in our tasks and maximise the overall well-being of the family unit. But we need to know first how the decision to marry is made. Both parties will compare the value of being single to the value of being married. It must be the case that, for both, the latter exceeds the former. Indeed, there is likely to be a surplus value for both allowing further trade opportunity. One partner can make a side-payment to the other and still find that marriage improves their well-being. That side-payment can be modelled through game theory.
Kirsty: Side-payment?
Duncan: Hmm, its nature will depend on the specific circumstances. If you’re investing in a mail order bride, it could be just a payment to the bride’s family. However, speaking more generally, it could be focused on the allocation of household chores. This can lead to potentially negative connotations. Could, for example, such chores be skewed towards one side? I won’t bother to mention which.
Kirsty: And the bad news. How about divorce?
Duncan: Now we can introduce the idea of a threat point. That depends on a comparison of how unhappy you are when separated compared to when you are together. If you have lots of friends and family locally it is likely to be set higher. You’re more likely to be happy alone and break-ups are more likely. However, we can’t ignore feminism. Power divides are crucial. Take the kids, quite literally. Custody laws favouring one partner, to the detriment of the other, can increase their bargaining power and reduce the likelihood of divorce. Each child costs about the same as a Ferrari, mind you, so there are issues over the extent that hyper-rationality holds. Moreover, we can refer to labour market imbalances. It is possible that one partner controls the empowerment of the other. They might have hindered financial independence by stopping them from furthering their career aspirations. They might have control over the finances and therefore restrict their partner’s independence and thereby increase the likelihood of an unhappy marriage surviving.
Kirsty: That’s a little disturbing. Anything more positive you’d like to add?
Duncan: I used to teach this stuff. My students, however, demanded that I switch to the Economics of War. Same thing really.
Kirsty: [laughs] Time’s up. You get to choose a record. It’s got to be a love song. What do you want?
Duncan: Let’s go for Iron Maiden’s ‘Wasting Love’.
*Editor’s Note: The veracity of this interview has not been confirmed.