Marriage Trade

Bryan is not just an economist in the classroom or on paper. He's an economist everyday in all aspects of his life, even marriage.

Most people say marriage is full of sacrifice, but they don't know the marriage of an economist. Bryan doesn't believe in sacrifice as an effective method of dealing with things or people. When you sacrifice, you are giving up something valuable for something less valuable. That's the nature of the word.

Bryan uses fancy economic terms words to describe this. A Pareto gain is something that you can do and any everyone wins. Kaldor gain is when someone wins and someone loses, the gains to the winner outweigh the loss of the loser. According to Bryan, sacrifice is the opposite: the loser loses a lot and the winner gains very little.

Trade and bargaining ensures that all Kaldor gains become Pareto gains because there is compensation. For each thing you'd like to have in marriage, you'll have to compensate your partner. This leads to conversations with Bryan that go something like this. "How much do you want to go to Patron's? $10? $5?" Sometimes it's hard for me to put price tags on experiences or items or choices, so Bryan has altered his approach with services, freedom and gifts.

In order to show the success of our trading, here are some recent trades made in the Buckley house:

I plan our improv schedule, apply to festivals, do the marketing and Bryan packs for trips, prints out posters, tells me where to put them, gathers all props (bells, slips of paper, whistle, etc)

Bryan got Starcraft and I got a weekly stipend to eat out with girlfriends

Bryan mows the lawn and I make an intense, fancy meal.

I clean the kitchen and the bathrooms; Bryan does the laundry and the dishes.

Bryan makes the budget and keeps stats; I do the shopping and the bill paying.

Everything has a price. This is one of Bryan's foundational thoughts.