IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ratsoc/v8y1996i2p187-206.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Marriage Paradoxes

Author

Listed:
  • Bruno S. Frey
  • Reiner Eichenberger

Abstract

Empirical research reveals that marriage decisions systematically deviate from the predictions based upon the conventional neo-classical approach in four respects: (1) people search surprisingly little for available marriage partners; (2) the characteristics of a potential partner are evaluated in a strongly biased way; (3) individuals take little advice for their marriage decision; and (4) the likelihood of one's own marriage ending in a divorce is strongly underestimated. These marriage paradoxes can be integrated into the rational-choice approach: individuals are aware of the possibility of falling prey to such paradoxes, and therefore take precautions at individual and institutional levels.

Suggested Citation

  • Bruno S. Frey & Reiner Eichenberger, 1996. "Marriage Paradoxes," Rationality and Society, , vol. 8(2), pages 187-206, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:8:y:1996:i:2:p:187-206
    DOI: 10.1177/104346396008002004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/104346396008002004
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/104346396008002004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Becker, Gary S, 1988. "Family Economics and Macro Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(1), pages 1-13, March.
    2. Sugden, Robert, 1986. "New Developments in the Theory of Choice under Uncertainty," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(1), pages 1-24, January.
    3. Lane,Robert E., 1991. "The Market Experience," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521407373, September.
    4. Becker, Gary S & Landes, Elisabeth M & Michael, Robert T, 1977. "An Economic Analysis of Marital Instability," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(6), pages 1141-1187, December.
    5. Bruno S. Frey & Reiner Eichenberger, 1989. "Should Social Scientists Care about Choice Anomalies?," Rationality and Society, , vol. 1(1), pages 101-122, July.
    6. Ehrlich, Isaac, 1975. "The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: A Question of Life and Death," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(3), pages 397-417, June.
    7. Bruno S. Frey, 1994. "How Intrinsic Motivation is Crowded out and in," Rationality and Society, , vol. 6(3), pages 334-352, July.
    8. Ehrlich, Isaac, 1973. "Participation in Illegitimate Activities: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 521-565, May-June.
    9. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    10. Frey, Bruno S. & Eichenberger, Reiner, 1994. "Economic incentives transform psychological anomalies," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 215-234, March.
    11. Hannan, Michael T, 1982. "Families, Markets, and Social Structures: An Essay on Becker's A Treatise on the Family," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 20(1), pages 65-72, March.
    12. Einhorn, Hj & Hogarth, Rm, 1981. "Behavioral Decision-Theory - Processes Of Judgment And Choice," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(1), pages 1-31.
    13. Bruno S. Frey & Reiner Eichenberger, 1993. "American and European Economics and Economists," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 185-193, Fall.
    14. George A. Akerlof, 1970. "The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(3), pages 488-500.
    15. Schoemaker, Paul J H, 1982. "The Expected Utility Model: Its Variants, Purposes, Evidence and Limitations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 529-563, June.
    16. Machina, Mark J, 1987. "Choice under Uncertainty: Problems Solved and Unsolved," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 121-154, Summer.
    17. Ferber, Marianne A & Birnbaum, Bonnie G, 1977. "The "New Home Economics:" Retrospects and Prospects," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 4(1), pages 19-28, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Samuel Cameron, 2002. "The Economics Of Partner Out Trading in Sexual Markets," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 4(3), pages 195-222, October.
    2. Stutzer, Alois & Frey, Bruno S., 2006. "Does marriage make people happy, or do happy people get married?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 326-347, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bruno S. Frey & Reiner Eichenberger, 1989. "Should Social Scientists Care about Choice Anomalies?," Rationality and Society, , vol. 1(1), pages 101-122, July.
    2. Frey, Bruno S. & Gallus, Jana, 2014. "Aggregate effects of behavioral anomalies: A new research area," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 8, pages 1-15.
    3. Finkelshtain, Israel & Feinerman, Eli, 1997. "Framing the Allais paradox as a daily farm decision problem: tests and explanations," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 15(3), pages 155-167, January.
    4. Bruno Frey, 1990. "From paradoxes to social rules, or: How economics repeats itself," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 27-34, March.
    5. Gilles Boevi Koumou & Georges Dionne, 2022. "Coherent Diversification Measures in Portfolio Theory: An Axiomatic Foundation," Risks, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-19, October.
    6. Conlisk, John, 1993. "The Utility of Gambling," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 255-275, June.
    7. Marc Willinger, 1990. "La rénovation des fondements de l'utilité et du risque," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 41(1), pages 5-48.
    8. Carlos Laciana & Elke Weber, 2008. "Correcting expected utility for comparisons between alternative outcomes: A unified parameterization of regret and disappointment," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 1-17, February.
    9. Gaudeul, Alexia, 2009. "A (micro) course in microeconomic theory for MSc students," MPRA Paper 15388, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Becker, Gary S., 1992. "The Economic Way of Looking at Life," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 1992-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    11. Dionne, Georges & Harrington, Scott, 2017. "Insurance and Insurance Markets," Working Papers 17-2, HEC Montreal, Canada Research Chair in Risk Management.
    12. Weber, Elke U., 1989. "A Behavioral Approach To Decision Making Under Uncertainty: Implications And Lessons For Expected Utility Theory," 1989 Quantifying Long Run Agricultural Risks and Evaluating Farmer Responses to Risk Meeting, April 9-12, 1989, Sanibel Island, Florida 271520, Regional Research Projects > S-232: Quantifying Long Run Agricultural Risks and Evaluating Farmer Responses to Risk.
    13. Entorf, Horst, 2012. "Certainty and Severity of Sanctions in Classical and Behavioral Models of Deterrence: A Survey," IZA Discussion Papers 6516, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Bram Driesen & Andrés Perea & Hans Peters, 2010. "On Loss Aversion in Bimatrix Games," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 68(4), pages 367-391, April.
    15. Tapiero, Charles, 2003. "Risk Management: An Interdisciplinary Framework," ESSEC Working Papers DR 03014, ESSEC Research Center, ESSEC Business School.
    16. Herzfeld, Thomas & Jongeneel, Roel, 2012. "Why do farmers behave as they do? Understanding compliance with rural, agricultural, and food attribute standards," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 29(1), pages 250-260.
    17. Bruno S. Frey & Matthias Benz, 2004. "From Imperialism to Inspiration: A Survey of Economics and Psychology," Chapters, in: John B. Davis & Alain Marciano & Jochen Runde (ed.), The Elgar Companion To Economics and Philosophy, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Bernasconi, Michele, 1992. "Different Frames for the Independence Axiom: An Experimental Investigation in Individual Decision Making under Risk," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 159-174, May.
    19. Helga Fehr-Duda & Thomas Epper, 2012. "Probability and Risk: Foundations and Economic Implications of Probability-Dependent Risk Preferences," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 567-593, July.
    20. Marquis, M Susan & Holmer, Martin R, 1996. "Alternative Models of Choice under Uncertainty and Demand for Health Insurance," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(3), pages 421-427, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:8:y:1996:i:2:p:187-206. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.