IS THERE AN EFFICIENCY WAGE EFFECT? No beach that offers "two girls for every guy" can long remain in that state. (I'm sure that's been offered as an arbitrage argument somewhere, but my search string skills are a bit weak this afternoon.) There might be something related in a Liberty Belles post on the meatmarket.

The finest of these beefcakes are much costlier to obtain than others, requiring you to spend more money diversifying your designer portfolio and more time working on your butt and hips. The entire value of the man derives from his relative unavailability and high cost vis à vis other men. An exclusive relationship with this man makes him entirely unavailable to others and drastically lowers supply of fine men on the meatmarket. Should the man violate his commitment to you by taking another Belle out to a romantic dinner, the supply of men will increase and his value to you will decrease.

But the hottest women are also costlier to obtain.

Let’s say a man is dating a stunning woman whom we will classify as a luxury good. In order to stay in this relationship, the man must have the wherewithal to meet her standards. This wherewithal, referred to as income in economic terms, includes the gamut of attributes that his lovely girlfriend finds attractive. Let’s say the man unexpectedly experiences a series of unfortunate events that hamper his ability to maintain her: he takes a pay cut, he has a stroke, he loses an arm, he gets fat, and his house is repossessed by the government for the public good. This miserable creature no longer has the wherewithal, or income, to pay for a luxury good such as his erstwhile girlfriend.

There's a nasty efficiency-wage problem buried in herre somewhere. But if both parties are paying premia to each other so as to attenuate the incentive to stray, what is the equilibrium investment in self-maintenance? And is that a pooling equilibrium or a separating equilibrium? Consider this followup at Unshackling Isaac Newton:

Women who are aloof find that there is a shortage of men who are willing to approach them. They are willing to spend very little opportunity dollars, and at this level there is a shortage of men.

There ought be opportunities for the people who opt out of the conventional channels being analyzed in this series of posts to find each other through different channels.