时间：3月28号下午3:00—4:30

地点：澳门永利6774文二栋五楼会议室

题目：Hard to get: The scarcity of women and the competition for high-income in urbanChina

报告者简介：

    Dr. David Ong，加利福尼亚大学经济学博士；曾任北京大学汇丰商学院经济学副教授，香港中文大学访问学者，澳大利亚昆士兰科技大学访问学者，现任暨南大学伯明翰大学联合学院教授。已经在Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization、European Economic Review和Applied Economics等SSCI刊物发表论文多篇，主要研究专长领域：实验经济学、行为博弈论、产业组织、应用微观经济学。

报告摘要：

    Reports of the difficulties of elite women in finding suitable mates have been increasing despite the growing scarcity of women inChina. We show that this phenomenon can be a consequence of women’s preference for men who have higher incomes than themselves. With such a reference-dependent preference, the pool of preferred men shrinks as women’s income increases, while the pool of competing poorer women expands. For high-income (h-)women, even when high-income (H-)men are more plentiful and richer (as in China), the direct effect of a greater number of desirable men can be overwhelmed by the indirect effect of the competitive “entry” of low-income (l-)women. We test for these competitive effects using online dating field experimental, Census, andChinaFamily Panel Studies data. Consistent with competitive entry, the search intensity of beautiful l-women for H-men increases with the sex ratio and the income of H-men, while that of the plain-looking decreases. Notwithstanding the search intensity of h-women for H-men uniformly increases, their probability of marriage decreases with the sex ratio and men’s income relative to low-income women. The decrease is absolute for of plain-looking high-income women. Our evidence is consistent with intra-female competition for spouses who can cover the labour market opportunity cost of marriage and childbirth, which vary with women’s income