The Joy of Economics:  Making Sense out of Life

Robert J. Stonebraker, Winthrop University

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Contents
Section I-A: Scarcity and Choice
Section I-B: How do we Choose
Section I-C: Efficiency and Competition
Section II-A: Love and Marriage
Section II-B: Sickness and Death
Section II-C: Crime
Section II-D: Higher Education
Section II-E: Religion
Section II-F: Shopping
Section II-G: Happiness
Section III-A: GDP
Section III-B: Unemployment and Inflation
Section III-C: Deficits and Debt
 

     Section II-A: Love and Marriage

 

          I love the idea of there being two sexes, don't you?
                                                                          .....James Thurber

 

          Few issues give more pain or more pleasure than love.  It vexes and delights every generation.  But all is not well.

          Fewer people marry and more people divorce.  Headlines trumpet stories of domestic violence and abuse.  Out-of-wedlock birth rates have soared.  Is it all falling apart?  Is morality on the wane?  Have we lost love in the labyrinth of modern life?  And what does economics have to do with love and marriage?  The callous logic of economics surely cannot explain affairs of the heart.

          Or can it?

 

II-A.   Love and marriage
          1.   Costs and benefits of marriage
                The Untied  Knot: Marriage on the Skids
                Monogamy: A Cure for the Modern Arms Race
          2.   Love, sex, and affection
                Older Men; Younger Women
                Exploitive Relationships
          3.   Children and families
                Empty Cradles
                Moral Decay 

 

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Last modified 07/18/06