About book Spousonomics: Using Economics To Master Love, Marriage, And Dirty Dishes (2011)
Not great. The economic theory is basic and the applications to marriage are tenuous at best. The authors never account for their own confirmation biases or the limitations of their own survey (What was the subject population? How do you account for self-selection? What were the controls?) and the "case studies" they offered were laughably bad in their attempts to show how "really knowing about [this one bit of economics] changed everything for this one couple, aha!" Correlation is not causation, data is not the plural of anecdote and so forth. There's also no attention paid to the limitations of the studies that they cite. (One of my peeves with these "layman's terms" type books is that they rarely delve into how often findings in studies are culturally bound. There's a recurrence to "But Science!" that is very shortsighted.) The tone was also a weird mix of overly chummy, smug, and super heteronormative. I would not recommend this book. I am not now, nor ever have been married, so it wasn't like I could apply these lessons. I must've liked the authors on the Daily Show or something? Anyway, it was a not-too-taxing read - they started by reviewing several things that I thought were pretty basic economic concepts. But then there was this chapter-by-chapter approach which would talk about a couple and some problem in their marriage and how they solved it (mostly) using economics. Pleasant and good to read on the bus, which is what I was looking for.
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A must-read for anyone married to an engineer or tragically overly-rational human being!!
—jolla
I realize marriage is part business but this takes out ALL aspects of love.
—iogan
