April 11, 2008

Por qué hay tan pocos solteros interesantes?

No puedo contenerme a copiar este análisis de la típica queja femenina: "los buenos están casados o son gays" desde una perspective de "game theory" (artículo original en Marginal Revolution):

...game theory predicts, and empirical studies of auctions bear out, that auctions will often be won by "weak" bidders, who know that they can be outbid and so bid more aggressively, while the "strong" bidders will hold out for a really great deal. You can find a technical discussion of this here. (Be warned: "Bidding Behavior in Asymmetric Auctions" is not for everyone, and I certainly won't claim to have a handle on all the math.) But you can also see how this works intuitively if you just consider that with a lot at stake in getting it right in one shot, it's the women who are confident that they are holding a strong hand who are likely to hold out and wait for the perfect prospect.

This is how you come to the Eligible-Bachelor Paradox, which is no longer so paradoxical. The pool of appealing men shrinks as many are married off and taken out of the game, leaving a disproportionate number of men who are notably imperfect (perhaps they are short, socially awkward, underemployed). And at the same time, you get a pool of women weighted toward the attractive, desirable "strong bidders."

Where have all the most appealing men gone? Married young, most of them—and sometimes to women whose most salient characteristic was not their beauty, or passion, or intellect, but their decisiveness.

1 comment:

Zorro de Segovia said...

te recomiendo que uno de estos días organices algún sarao con tus compañeros de instituto. Cuando veas lo que la edad ha hecho con la mayoría, comprenderás por qué los pocos que se han salvado de la quema física son buenos candidatos, ¿o deberíamos decir, únicos candidatos?·