Dollars and Sex

I have always thought that the fable that best describes the modern world is that of the Emperor’s New Clothes. You know the one in which the ruler struts around naked while his subjects tell him how wonderful his new robes are rather than risking to appear to be stupid. Of course at the end of the ... Read More

I had a heated debate on Facebook this week over the issue raised in this opinion piece in The New York Times that argues that anti-discrimination laws don’t go far enough to protect women who lose their jobs because they are pregnant. The woman who tipped off the Facebook debate is a human ... Read More

My son told me yesterday that he doesn’t think he will be dating this year since he refuses to date any girl who smokes. He is in grade 7. I wonder if the group of girls that I see collected outside of his school in the morning having one more smoke before the school day begins realize that because ... Read More

New research finds that government regulations that restrict the supply of abortions performed after 15 weeks gestation in the state of Texas increased the price of late abortions by 37% ($454) and lead to an increase in the number of unintended births by over 6,600 in the three years following the ... Read More

This is the first of two posts on the topic of the market for second trimester abortions. Later on in the week we will talk about the impact of government policies on the supply side of that market. Before we do that, I want to start with a discussion of the economic factors that are contributing to ... Read More

I always say, there is nothing sexier than a man with a lot of credit card debt. Let the other ladies have the husbands who have made smart financial decisions, when I stand at the alter and say “I do” I want to know that the man in front of me has as accumulated as much debt as possible. A new, and ... Read More

I had a drink with a friend a few weeks ago who informed me that the only men looking for a woman my age (mid-forties) are men in their early to mid-sixties. After I beat him senseless with my old-lady handbag, I thought to myself: There has to be some empirical evidence that shows whether or not ... Read More

You know the type of book that your library would like someone to take home and never return? I picked a little gem this way recently called How to Find the Love of Your Life: 90 Days to a Permanent Relationship, and was charmed to see that it contained this nugget: Wouldn’t it be wonderful if ... Read More

Several years ago I was chatting on an online dating site with a man who claimed to have a graduate degree. When I asked him what his degree was he revealed that in reality he had spent six years in community college repeatedly starting, but failing to complete, programs. His comment was, “I ... Read More

Here is a post for commenters who like to write, “Repeat after me people, correlation does not imply causality!” whenever they read an empirical result they do not want to believe is true.  A working paper out of the University of Michigan finds that between 10 and 25% of divorces in the period ... Read More

Do a quick online search for the term “What causes divorce” and you will be greeted with a myriad of sites claiming to have the answer. A popular claim is that online dating and social networking sites are major contributors to infidelity and divorce. A new economics paper presents some very ... Read More

  I was on train last Sunday night traveling through Brussels when my 12-year-old son looked out the window and excitedly proclaimed, “They have a red light district!” He was right; the street running parallel to the train tracks was lined with women in their Christmas-box windows beckoning ... Read More

Promiscuity in US high schools is at a twenty year low and teen birth rates have fallen by over one third from 1991 through to 2009. So why is it if teens are sexually active at lower frequencies, and appear to be taking more precautions, that 50% of new STI infections last year were in people ... Read More

A couple of years ago Steven Landsburg controversially argued that if we want STI rates to fall then what is needed is more people participating in casual sex.  As counter-intuitive as that argument may seem, the reverse of that “unconventional wisdom” appears to be playing out in high schools ... Read More

Warning, the four minutes you will spend reading this blog post may be hazardous to your marriage.Or so you might think. New research out of the Netherlands examines the relationship between marriage quality and Internet usage finding that the more frequently an individual uses the Internet the ... Read More