Marina Adshade – Bartering Sex and Love

Economist Marina Adshade has studied and taught courses on the economic theory of the love and sex “market.” Looking at it from an economic perspective helps us to understand our options and decisions. In this illuminating talk, she asserts that love and sex are actually in a barter economy, which traditionally is “horribly inefficient”, because when there is no money involved, what you want to sell has to match what someone else wants to buy. That’s not always easy to do, and so bartering often leads to a lowering of expectations. The advent of online dating has helped to solve the inefficiencies to some extent. Further, some studies suggest that the online dating phenomenon has led to an increase of the marriage rate and a reduction of the divorce rate.