Economists have generally supposed that certainty and severity of punishment deter crime and have been surprised whenever this is not confirmed by empirical word. This paper gives a number of explanations, consistent with economic theory, as to why there need not be a contradiction here. The...

This paper presents the first attempts by economists to estimate an equation of the demand curve for sexual relationship partner attributes. The focus is on the age of partner sought as the item demanded. A sample of newspaper 'personal ads' is used to construct the demand curve. The estimates...