So, What Did You Do Last Night? The Economics of Infidelity

Bruce Elmslie and Edinaldo Tebaldi

Kyklos, 2008, vol. 61, issue 3, 391-410

Abstract: This paper develops an economic analysis of infidelity concentrating on the question of how cheating behavior differs between men and women. We develop an expected utility model that borrows from evolutionary biology to form expectations regarding behavior towards infidelity. We use U.S. data from the General Social Survey (GSS) and a Probit model to assess some characteristics of the respondent and his or her spouse that determine the probability of having an extramarital affair. While biology may form basic preferences, some of our results are consistent with the view that people are able to act on more than their base biological instincts alone. Hence, economic theory has a role to play in the understanding of behavior relating to infidelity. More specifically, this study identifies age, social class, individual's own education and the spouse's educational attainment as underlying factors affecting infidelity behavior depending on gender. In general, we find that men and women respond differently to the costs and benefits of having an affair.

Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6435.2008.00408.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:kyklos:v:61:y:2008:i:3:p:391-410

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0023-5962

Access Statistics for this article

Kyklos is currently edited by Rene L. Frey

More articles in Kyklos from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().