Some time ago John Allen Paulos wrote a review (abcnews.go.com/Technology/story of an entertaining article examining the economics of prostitution (www.iies.su.se/seminars/p...dlund.pdf). The article sparked outrage amongst certain self-appointed social commentators, an outrage only supported by misreading Paulos' ABC article and not taking the time to read the original article. I thought that was a little unfair, and wrote the following:

The original paper is rather wonderful and though the premises are simplified, and admittedly absurdly so (these are called "stylized facts" in the business), the conclusions stem logically (and mathematically correctly) from the assumptions. Those who consider themselves sympathetic to sex workers would likely be amused and in general agreement. One must apply the traditional admonition so commonly warranted by articles released without the benefit of an editor: RTFA.

First, the Paulos (ABC) article summarizes the original paper accurately while fairly pointing out the (few) unacknowledged flaws in the original article: specifically citing sampling problems with prostitutes that have been busted and failing to consider abusive or problematic marriages which impose costs on the wife not considered by the article, which may be substantive enough to alter the conclusions, or require additional balancing considerations otherwise ignored.

That Paulos is a review of Edlund and Korn makes a review of Paulos an absence of fully understanding the Edlund and Korn article a mere ad hominem attack. If one were to read the paper, one would find Paulos that gives an accurate and reasonable summary though by necessity does not delve into every detail the article presents.

Neither Paulos nor Edlund and Korn make the mistake of assuming all prostitutes fall into the same socio-economic class, as suggested by the critics of Paulos' review, rather the paper considers the simple case where incomes for prostitution are homogeneous and where they are heterogeneous, and likewise makes the same assumptions for male incomes and for women's incomes, and finally adds to the model "housewives." The economic distributions they make for the incomes of prostitutes are derived from 13 cited studies (of 58 references) including mid-15th century France, 1934 Japan, 1947-72 Germany, 1973 Nevada, early 1980's Thailand, 1981 Munich, 1990-91 Los Angeles, 1993 Montreal, mid-1990's Indonesia, 1995 Barcelona, 1997 German, 1997 Brazil, and late 1990's Malaysia. The article describes the market structure as:

"At the bottom we find street prostitution, followed by brothels, bars and clubs. Call girls and escort agencies occupy the middle to high slots, and kept women the top rungs."

Paulos briefly mentions and Edlund and Korn go into some detail regarding the "ugly side." It would seem that one of the critics (Ray) might take issue with the characterization of section 4.4 of the paper, titled "Voluntary?" but the paper certainly address the issue. The conclusion of the authors is that there is no question of victimization: "[i]n times and places where forced labor has been used, prostitution was no exception." But the authors suggest that "Poor conditions or riskiness are by themselves not sufficient to establish bondage or slavery as the alternative could be worse." That is, the authors do not support the concept of "economic slavery" as such, acknowledging that "economic realities seem to play into how willingly women are thus victimized," but this is not slavery - it is a rational choice in confronting a difficult situation. Sex workers are not mindless victims.

The workers written about in both the ABC article and the paper are in no way "recreational sex workers," as suggested by the critics, indeed that concept is only briefly acknowledged as being largely irrelevant to the economic theory they are deriving. They admit that such dismissal of "recreational sex workers" undermines the validity of the theory to the extant that some women might find economic value in the pleasure of the occupation of being a prostitute, rather it is a common but false assumption that women "abhor sex" (and also the equally problematic assumption that "women were suspected of being overly sexual and willing adulteresses.")

One of the worst examples of how embarrassing it can be to not RTFA before expounding on a misinterpretation of it is the argument that the authors failed to do their homework on income levels. Aside from the summary of sources used as reference, to support the contention that prostitution as a profession commands _some_ premium over other employment available to women of similar qualifications, the article specifically cites in section 2.3 Pay, the following "For a probability sample of 1,024 female street prostitutes in LA interviewed in 1990 and 1991, the annual average total earnings were USD 23,845 for prostitutes, while working women averaged USD 20,197 and female service workers only USD 17,192." The article backs this assertion up with data from Montreal, Indonesia, and Malaysia. If one had residual doubt as to the validity of the assumption, one can review the 13 references cited in table 1.

As to the argument that the article is remiss in positing that ex-prostitutes cannot marry, it is not. The entire point of the economic argument is predicated on the _assumption_ specifically spelled out as such by both the article and the ABC review that prostitutes cannot marry and married women are not prostitutes. The degree to which that assumption is valid is specially addressed in 4.5 Wife and prostitute? The authors state (and one of the critics (Ray) backs up) that "It is a fair guess that to the extent former prostitutes marry, on average they do so on worse terms than they would have had in the absence of their past." That is, having been a prostitute is a liability in the marriage market. You might find some men who love it, some who don't care, but on _average_ it is a liability. That one of the critics (Ray) argues that young women may fail to make the calculation they are trading marriage for high income is utterly irrelevant to the economic argument presented, as even a cursory read of the article would reveal.

Critical dismissal of the competing commodities argument is also an embarrassing admission of a failure to RTFA. The article does get all Madonna-whore: "The prostitute serves men in a way that would be scandalous if done by a wife. The Madonna ­ Whore dichotomy may have risen from the need to keep the two separate. Consistent with the premise of this paper, the wife was pigeon-holed at the high end of the social spectrum, and the harlot at respectable distance." The article goes into great detail about the comparative services of the prostitute and wife, how both have value and why, and what it means. The stylized fact is not about the mutually exclusive condition of men, rather the stylized fact is to create a mutually exclusive choice for women. It is merely essential to the premise that the woman choose to be a prostitute or a wife (though footnote 27 admits "The alternative formulation that women choose neither, but are sold into either marriage or prostitution, would also work.")

As for ignoring homosexual prostitution, the article does not, nor does it ignore the critic's (Blue's) supposed counter example of "renting a stud." Male stud services are not economically relevant to the model being developed. Again, a quick RTFA will make the reasons clear: directly addressing homosexual prostitution the authors state: "Females outnumber males as sellers, but that is not the primary reason we do not discuss homosexual prostitution. The premise of this paper is that female heterosexual prostitution is conditioned by the following realities of reproduction: fecund women are scarce; a child has by default only one known parent ­ the mother; and marriage gives a man parental rights to the children borne by his wife."

Overall an excellent paper and a good review of it, done a disservice by reactive critique.