Pourquoi (et combien) payer pour rencontrer un « bon » conjoint ?

In contemporary times, individuals wishing to get married are increasingly using matchmakers to assist them with the task of finding an apposite spouse. Do people who expend money in matchmaking services pay in order to merely reduce costs of searching? Or are they willing to pay in order to improve their marital standards, i.e. to buy the opportunity of meeting a ?better? potential mate than those they should meet by their own means? Using data from the file of a matchmaking agency, we show that women are likely to pursue the former strategy, and men the latter. Classification JEL : C91 ; D13 ; D83.