"Prostitution bears the unique title of being both the ""world's oldest profession"" and one of the least understood occupations.
Unlike most of the crime and family literature, prostitution appears to have all the features of traditional markets: prices, supply and demand considerations, variety in the organizational structure, and policy relevance. Despite this, economists have largely ignored prostitution in their research and writings. This has been changing, however, over the last twenty years as greater access to data has enabled economists to build better theories and gain a better understanding of the organization of sex market.
The Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Prostitution fills the gap in our understanding. It brings together many of the top researchers in the field who explain how the prostitution markets are organized across space and time, the role of technology in shaping labor supply and demand, the intersection of prostitution with trafficking, and the optimal use of law enforcement. What makes the material unique is its explicit focus on economics as the primary methodology for organizing our understanding of prostitution. The Handbook brings to scholars' attention for the first time a collection of original writings on prostitution that provides an overview of what is known and what is not known in this area. Researchers with an interest in underground markets, labor economics, risky behaviors, marriage, and gender will find the book's contents illuminating and path breaking."
"I. INTRODUCTION 1. Introduction Scott Cunningham and Manisha Shah II. SUPPLY AND DEMAND 2. Examining the Role of Client Reviews and Reputation within Online Prostitution Scott Cunningham and Todd D. Kendall 3. Economic Theories and Empirics on the Sex Market Handie Peng 4. Sexual and Communication Networks of Internet-Mediated Prostitution Luis E. C. Rocha, Fredrik Liljeros, Petter Holme 5. Examining the Economics of Prostitution using Online Data Thomas J. Holt, Kristie R. Blevins, and Sarah Fitzgerald 6. Stigma and Risky Behaviors Among Clients of Prostitutes Marina Della Giusta, Maria Laura Di Tommaso, and Sarah L. Jewell 7. Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Legal Status on Versatility and Efficiency in Prostitution Markets Samuel Cameron III. PROSTITUTE BEHAVIOR IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 8. Transactional Sex in Malawi Sarah Baird and Berk Özler 9. Income, Income Shocks, and Transactional Sex Katherine LoPiccalo, Jonathan Robinson, and Ethan Yeh 10. Economics of Sex Work in Bangladesh Asadul Islam and Russell Smyth 11. The Details are in the Fineprint: Sex Work, Sex Workers, Definitional Complications of Identity Rohini Sahni and V. Kalyan Shankar IV. MEN WHO HAVE SEX WITH MEN 12. The Economics of Male Sex Work Trevon D. Logan 13. Male Sex Workers: HIV Risk and Behavioral Economics Omar Galárraga and Sandra G. Sosa-Rubí V. LAW AND POLICY 14. Bargaining, Coercion, and Entry in Prostitution Markets: Implications for Prostitution Law Samuel Lee and Petra Persson 15. Prostitution Policy G. Immordino and F.F. Russo 16. A Method for Determining the Size of the Underground Cash Economy for Commercial Sex in Seven US Cities Bilal Khan, Mitch Downey, Meredith Dank, and Kirk Dombrowski VI. HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION LAW 17. Nevada's Regulated Brothels Barbara G. Brents 18. Canadian Prostitution Law: History and Market Impacts Lauren Jones 19. ""Sidewalk's Queens"": The Economics of Popular Prostitutions in Fin-de-Siècle Paris Alexandre Frondizi and Simon Porcher VII. EXTERNALITIES (STDS & SEXUAL EXPLOITATION) 20. Demographic Change, Prostitution, and Sexually Transmitted Infection Rates in China Avraham Ebenstein and Ethan J. Sharygin 21. The Economics of Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation Niklas Jakobsson and Andreas Kotsadam 22. HIV/AIDS and Commercial Sex Work in the Developing World Pedro de Araujo"
Scott Cunningham is an Associate Professor of Economics at Baylor University. His main research focuses on the organization of illicit and illegal markets, drug policy, prostitution, and risky sexual behavior. He has published in the Journal of Urban Economics and Economic Inquiry. Manisha Shah is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at UCLA. She is a development economist whose primary research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of applied microeconomics, health, and development. Her research has appeared in journals like the Journal of Political Economy, American Economic Review, American Economic Journal, and the Journal of Human Resources.
Reviews for The Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Prostitution
This book, edited by Scott Cunningham and Manisha Shah, is part of the Oxford Handbook Series... It explores recent economic research about prostitution and sex... The chapters include descriptive, historical, and institutional chapters but mostly aeconomic modela type papers, such as the type that would show up in an applied economics journal. -- D. C. Colander (Middlebury College), Choice Reviews Vol 55.
