Thursday, September 08, 2005

Economics of seduction


Tyler Cowen, over at Marginal Revolution has a post, triggered by Neil Strauss' new book The Game : Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists [Update (9.9.2005): Here is a review by a desi]. Apparently, Strauss recommends 'hard-to-get' as a strategy. Cowen's discussion of this recommendation covers a lot of bases (including, for example, "Isn't 'hard-to-get' too easy to mimic?"), and poses some interesting questions in game theory. His conclusion? "A proper application of hard-to-get is well...hard to get right"!

While we are on game theory, do check out this recent post in which by Michael Higgins draws some interesting parallels between marriage and -- ouch! -- a repeated game of 'prisoner's dilemma' ...

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