“who wants to get laid when you could be talking about ’sunk costs’, ‘optimal strategy’, and ‘negative externality’?”

True – but it will give you an awesome story to tell economists when you are out on the piss 🙂

talking about ‘sunk costs’, ‘optimal strategy’, and ‘negative externality’ on a date will not get you laid.

The game between partners is definitely different to the game for a one-night stand (as Steve as discusses). You are right to view the decision to buy makeup etc as an investment decision as well as a consumption decision – however, that does not remove the sunk cost issue, which is a factor of the timing inherent in the game. Ultimately, it is the timing issue that causes sunk costs to be relevant!

When it comes time to pay the bill, you have already paid for the clothes and makeup, so this is a sunk cost – which implies it should influence the bargaining round that is implicitly involved in deciding who pays the bill.

You are completely right that your expectation of whether the man will pay the bill, or will be good in the sack, influences your earlier choice on how much to “invest” in your attire. This is a separate issue.

Fundamentally, if your “investment” increases the payoff for the other player in the game (the man) we have a positive externality. If you are not taking this externality into account when making your investment decision, you will “under-invest” compared to what would be socially optimal.

Now it does not sound like you under-invest, which makes me suspect that their is some complicated social bargaining solution going on here. If this is the case, the man should really pay for the meal as a way of “splitting the surplus” that occurs when you make the decision not to “under-invest” in your attire.

Such an equilibrium only seems sustainable in the face of set social norms – which is what makes it so fascinating.

Explain “sunk costs” with regards women who are dating a man with the intent on dating and then marriage (return on investment) then?

My point is that costs incurred by women with these expectations are the very definition not of a sunk (unrecoverable) cost as they expect a return in terms of marriage and an increase in their net worth. I did the calculation with respect to return or utility by way of sexual interaction.

That I do not have these expectations of a return in terms of increasing my net worth through a relationship should only mean that there is more reason for the idiot to pay for my dinner.

Completely agreed – I get the feeling that women are currently co-operating in order to sustain this strategy. I wonder how that happens – I think that it has to do with the cost they enforce on members that deviate

I suspect that Bratz dolls are males attempt to break down the effectiveness of this co-operative strategy in future generations 😉

“What is a mans optimal strategy?”

Probably depends on the man – I suspect that for many of us it is “pay the bill” 😛 . I wonder if men would be able to sustain some sort of co-operative strategy, or is the cost of deviating just too low?

What is a mans optimal strategy?