Image Credit: Liz Fosslien

Have you ever considered dating an economist, and if yes, what did you decide? If you are puzzled by this question, there are plenty of resources, which can help you to find an answer. The amount of material on this topic found by searching Google and the number of jokes made clearly indicate that it is indeed a hot topic, even more so on a Valentine’s Day.

Some articles, like 21 Reasons Why You Should Never Date an Economist by INSEAD, give quite an explicit answer. Others take a more scientific approach, but still agree on one thing: if you are dealing with a dilemma as to whether you should go for an economist or not, you should be prepared that an economist will be very unlikely to resist a temptation to apply professionally learned principles to their love life, too. Surprisingly for some, many of their assumptions might turn out true.

As a special treat for a Valentine’s Day, we gathered a small collection of articles and blog posts about how economists approach love and how dating can be explained using a more scientific approach. Before looking at them into detail though, you might want to have a look at the paper by Matthew E. Kopfler “Effects of Romantic Relationships on Academic Performance” …

1. Let’s start with How Economics Can Get You a Date  – an exploratory video by Tim Harford

2. How Nobel Economic Prize Winners Solved Dating Problem – an explained application of Alvin Roth’s and Lloyd Shapley’s work to finding the One.

3. An Economist Goes to a Bar and Solves the Mysteries of Dating – a quest of understanding what makes people desirable, including the results of a speed-dating experiment by Ray Fishman.

4. Game theory applied to a first kiss and some other interesting observations through economic principles in Dating for Economists.

5. The Secrets of Dating With an Economic Twist is a post by The Everyday Economist, explaining how we pick our partners.

6. Why I’m Beginning To Understand The Economist Dating Jokes … by Jodi Beggs on Economists Do It With Models.

7. “LOVE-O-NOMICS” is a blog which is entirely dedicated to “economic evidence useful for normal people in their daily lives, and, indeed, to help you find The One“.

8. 14 Ways an Economist Says I Love You – a witty visual about how economists explain their feelings – in graphs! The image from the top of this post is actually taken from here.

9. In Lessons in Love, by Way of Economics Ben Stein explores a return on investment in love.

10. “Relationship dilemma” through the eyes of an economist in Why Smart Women Go For Jerks.

And here are two more articles about dating specifically for those working in academia:

A comparison of the academic job market to dating by Lori A. Flores, an assistant professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in Dating and Job-Hunting, and what happens when academics get into online dating in Geek Love: Dating While Academic and Other Misadventures.