Review 5: Infidelity & GDP

Author's Note:

Less than a week to beat Mass Effect on the hard difficulty... I'm getting too good at this...

Minor detour because there was an article that came up on poly researchers that caught my eye. Still reading through Border Sexualities, but the current chapter is a doozy, which I should have something on soon.

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Review 5:
Crouch, E. (2011). Infidelity & GDP. Retrieved from http://www.cheaters.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/infidelitystudy.pdf

I'm not sure quite what to think about this paper. The questions are good, what's the economic impact on society (macroeconomic style) of infidelity. Really more of a mono-normative question but interesting because of the questions it raises.

Unfortunately how it tries to answer those questions is shoddy at best, self-contradictions (infidelity being both the second most AND the leading cause of divorce? Seriously?) and jumping to grand conclusions (infidelity is not responsible for the disillusionment of all families!).

Again, the primary take-aways are with the questions, not the answers. The questions I'm appropriating for my use, of course, but here's what I can garner:

1) What are the consumption patterns of non-monogamous families? How does that differ from monogamous and single families? How do existing policies and laws affect non-monogamist consumption patterns compared to monogamists

2) What social services do non-monogamists have access to? How are those services allocating resources to non-monogamists? What is the broader impact of non-monogamists using those services instead of monogamists?

Interesting economic questions about non-monogamists, and as always, no data out there to really work with (especially from this piece), but a good starting point.

- Jason