Body Weight and Matching With a Physically Attractive Romantic Partner

Matching and attribute trade are two perspectives used to explain mate selection. We investigated patterns of matching and trade, focusing on obesity, using Add Health Romantic Pair data (N = 1,405 couples). Obese individuals, relative to healthy weight individuals, were less likely to have physically attractive partners, with this disadvantage greater for women than men, and greater for White women than Black women. Additional education, a more attractive personality, and better grooming increased the probability of having a physically attractive partner and offset the disadvantage of obesity for some individuals. Unexpectedly, we found women, like men, trade education for their partners’ physical attractiveness. Despite evidence of attribute trade, matching with respect to physical characteristics was the dominant mate selection pattern.     

Partially monotonic bargaining solutions

The purpose of the paper is to study partially monotonic solutions for two-person bargaining problems. Partial monotonicity relates to the uncertainty a player has about the solution before bargaining. If the minimum utility a player can expect is greater in game T than in game S, and if T contains more alternatives than S, this may bring him to expect that his utility at the solution is greater in T than in S. Partially monotonic solutions reflect these expectations.One partially monotonic solution is axiomatized. The axioms of symmetry and independence of linear transformations are not explicitly assumed, although the solution has also these properties. The Kalai-Smorodinsky solution is shown to be the only continuous partially monotonic solution.This study was financed by the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation, which is gratefully acknowledged. I like to thank an associate editor and a referee for their valuable suggestions, and the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation Study Group on Public Economics for useful discussions     

The impact of gender on gambling attitudes and behavior

Researchers have often attributed the consistent relation of gender and gambling behavior to gender role socialization. If they are correct, gender should affect different sets of gambling attitudes in a manner consistent with at least three aspects of gender role socialization: a double standard of morality, a guardian of the hearth role for women, and a dualism of orientations. A survey measuring gambling attitudes and behavior was sent to a sample of residents in North Dakota after legalization of several games of chance (e.g., blackjack). Gender affects behavior but only some of the specified attitudes. These mixed results may reflect changes in gender role socialization and the increasing legalization of gambling.     

RECURSIVE RESIDUALS FOR MULTIVARIATE REGRESSION MODELS

Recursive residuals and their relationship to the recursive estimation of regression parameters have been developed for unvaried regression mod els. Such residuals and estimates have been used to test the constancy of regression over time. The current paper extends this work to multivariate regression modal.