Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Economics Research Institute Study Paper

Volume

15

Publisher

Utah State University Department of Economics

Publication Date

1999

Rights

Copyright for this work is held by the author. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information contact the Institutional Repository Librarian at digitalcommons@usu.edu.

First Page

1

Last Page

14

Abstract

In a recent paper, Batabyal (1997) has analyzed the decision making process in arranged marriages. In particular, Batabyal shows that a marrying agent's optimal policy depends only on the nature of the current marriage proposal, independent of whether there is recall of previous marriage proposals. In this paper, I continue this line of inquiry by focusing on the decision problem faced by a marrying agent who wishes to maximize the probability of getting married to the best possible person. Inter alia, I show that this agent's optimal policy calls for waiting a while, and saying yes to the first candidate thereafter.

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