Inefficient pricing of the marriage market
This project aims to explain the inefficient pricing of marriage market with the inevitable short-sight of players in the extensive games. Matching of marriage in a society has been theorised as a market since based on Becker’s theory (1978). Yet, the marriage market has not captured the difference between men and women, and not explained enough of dynamic relationship between two games: marriage formation/dissolution and marriage surplus division. The pricing standards of the marriage market in the matching and division games are inconsistent, which leads to inefficient matching of marriage, i.e. divorce. We further deduct that, this inefficiency is inevitable because marriage formation and gain of marriage surplus are not simultaneous. During while, players are inevitable short-sighted with changing evaluation standards. It leads players to make the inefficient strategy in the decision tree – inefficient matching of partner. We further argue that the matching is not necessarily inefficient at the moment of decision make, yet as time goes by, the decision seems inefficient during the late marriage surplus division game. Though short-sighted players in the extensive game has been developed as a theory (Grossi and Turrini, 2012), it has not been used under the context of marriage market.
Date: 16 November 2023, 15:00 (Thursday, 6th week, Michaelmas 2023)
Venue: Manor Road Building, Manor Road OX1 3UQ
Venue Details: Skills Lab or https://zoom.us/j/97316381707?pwd=WDdBVlJVVU1Ga3JnRW15c0RnNlE5QT09
Speaker: Yidian Meng (University of Oxford)
Organising department: Department of Economics
Part of: Novel Ideas: MPhil Seminar Series
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Members of the University only
Editor: Shreyasi Banerjee