Economics in Desperate Housewives

Last night, I saw some intelligent economics on TV. Not, of course, on  Newsnight but on Desperate Housewives. Gabrielle said:

You can’t put a price on a happy marriage. At least, not a low one.

She’s right. This paper (pdf) has estimated that a marriage is worth almost £80,000 ($110,000) a year; this reflects partly the fact that marriage makes people happy, but also the fact that we need lots of money to increase our well-being by much.
In this context, the $30,000 bonus Gabrielle got from Carlos’s boss wasn’t such a great deal after all.
Meanwhile, Orson complained about the high salary Bree - who should have chosen me over him anyway - was paying to Andrew. This draws our attention to a point made by Akerlof and Shiller in Animal Spirits - that wages are not merely a financial transaction but carry all sorts of emotional and psychological weight. They are tied in with our sense of self-esteem - hence the word “earnings“:

"You're saying I'm worthless."
"No, you're worth ... less."

It is partly perhaps for this reason that income (pdf) is a positional good: we get upset when others earn more than us, even if we suffer no material harm from them doing so. As the old joke about the worker negotiating with his boss goes: “Well, if you can’t give me a rise, can’t you just give everyone else a cut?”
DH, then, gives us good economics. Newnight, by contrast, only offers us pish like this. There’s nothing more trivial than “serious” television.

Comments

[CharlieMcMenamin]

Naw, that's really unfair on Newsnight. Sure that debate was absolutely pointless and uninformative.

But Paul Mason has been doing a brilliant job of economic journalism all through the financial crisis. His blog is pretty good as well.

Mind you, he might say he wasn't an economist per se, but a political economist.

[chris]

Yes, I'll exempt Paul from the charge - but by crikey his light is hidden under a helluva thorny bushel.

[Recusant]

Paul Mason? The bargain basement Trotskyite? Ye Gods.

Liam Halligan actually says something that you can hang your hat on rather than the amorphous waffle spoken by everyone else in the current circumstances. It's a pity that, having had it up to the neck with that Prince of Smugness, Jon Snow, he felt compelled to leave Channel 4 News: he was one of the few good things on it.

[dearieme]

"that wages are not merely a financial transaction but carry all sorts of emotional and psychological weight." The man in the street is, if anything, too aware of this. Often he has to be reminded that a wage is also, among all those other things, a price.

[redpesto]

It is partly perhaps for this reason that income (pdf) is a positional good: we get upset when others earn more than us, even if we suffer no material harm from them doing so.

Yep - just ask Tom Scavo, let alone Orson: both are men whose wives have considerable more earning power (and ability) than their menfolk...but that, I suggest, is another blog post.

[Ugg london]

Never frown, when you are sad, because you never know who is falling in love with your smile.

[chi flat iron]

CHI flat iron by Farouk system. Direct from the manufacturer, this genuine Chi ceramic iron comes with valid, one year warranty!

[red bottom sole]

Very, very nicely done!