Cunningham, Scott; Kendall, Todd D. --- "Prostitution, Technology, and the Law: New Data and Directions" [2011] ELECD 602; in Cohen, R. Lloyd; Wright, D. Joshua (eds), "Research Handbook on the Economics of Family Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Research Handbook on the Economics of Family Law

Editor(s): Cohen, R. Lloyd; Wright, D. Joshua

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848444379

Section: Chapter 10

Section Title: Prostitution, Technology, and the Law: New Data and Directions

Author(s): Cunningham, Scott; Kendall, Todd D.

Number of pages: 50

Extract:

10 Prostitution, technology, and the law: new data
and directions*
Scott Cunningham and Todd D. Kendall


1 INTRODUCTION

While variously encouraged, sanctioned, prohibited, and taxed in different societies under
different legal and regulatory systems, prostitution has continuously played an important
role in family phenomena for most of human history. For men, prostitutes may be either
economic substitutes or complements for wives in consumption (Posner, 1992), and their
availability can also affect wives' position in pre- and post-marital bargaining (Garofalo,
2002). For women, prostitution is a substitute for marriage in production (Edlund and
Korn, 2002), and its prevalence can thus affect the rate of family formation and out-of-
wedlock childbirth. For society, prostitution potentially has substantial externalities,
and in most societies, laws have imposed various regulations on transactions between
prostitutes, customers, and others involved in the industry.1
Despite the importance of the phenomenon, economic analysis of sex work is in its
infancy. There have been some theoretical advances, but a fuller understanding of the
phenomenon of prostitution has been stymied by a dearth of systematic data collection.
Moreover, the extant empirical literature on the economics of prostitution has primarily
focused on either developing countries or, in some cases, outdoor (e.g., streetwalking)
prostitution in first-world nations.2 Our focus in this chapter is on modern prostitu-
tion, the institutions of which have changed substantially in the last decade due to the
introduction of modern technology, including mobile telephones and the Internet. These
technologies have facilitated a substantial ...