More Sex is Safer Sex (and also maybe better)

More Sex is Safer Sex
The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics
Steven E. Landsburg

(Free Press, 2007, pp 274; PhP1170 at fully booked)


Expectedly, Landsburg got a lot of hate mail for the lead essay in this collection from readers who misinterpreted it as advocating promiscuity. It does not. What it does is use economic theory to argue that if responsible individuals shy away from the casual sex market, it leaves that market with a greater proportion of individuals with more risky behavior, and thus increase the risk for other people of contracting HIV.

Landsburg, who writes a popular column (Everyday Economics), is one of a few economists who believe that the world would be a much better place if the findings (and also the methods) of economics had a wider audience, and who act on that belief. He does a good job explaining these findings because he refrains from using economics jargon. He succeeds because he is a good writer, and he is a good writer because he is a clear thinker, though he falters in some instances. (Why he appreciates Scrooge).

The main reason I appreciate Landsburg is that he painstaking explains a key concept in economics without ever using the technical term (externality). As a perpetual student and practioner of environmental economics, I am often frustrated with people who don’t understand the idea, because I am a distance removed from the clear thinking of people like Landsburg.

But back to sex, which is probably why you are my accidental reader. To my knowledge, the AIDS scourge is already contained in the Philippines, but I could be wrong and the health authorities could be lying, or maybe the entrepreneurs of the sex industry here might really be more responsible. (Hey, I’m no expert on the sex industry and I’ve never had sex with a prostitute). But the main assertion in the essay holds, regardless. Certainly such ideas would raise the hackles of ‘respectable’ citizens in a morally challenged and hypocritical Catholic country such as ours. But wait, Landsburg refrains from discussing morality, but recognizes that moral values do matter.

In another essay, he could also be misinterpreted as supporting the Catholic church’s position on birth control in the essay “Be Fruitful and Multiply.” He argues that a larger world population would be good for all of us, but he doesn’t necessarily argue that governments (especially in the developing countries) should not spend tax money educating poor households on the merits of birth control and responsible parenthood).

Readers who enjoyed Freakonomics would probably enjoy this book. But they should know that there is a limit to how much economists would reveal the secrets of their profession, because after some limit, they would start to make themselves dispensable. And they would not generally want to cross that line.

The ‘more sex’ idea is not really his but that of Michael Kremer, a Harvard economist, who did the rigorous analysis and reported the results in “Integrating Behavioral Choice into Epidemiological Models of the AIDS Epidemic” in the Quarterly Journal of Economics.


I bought a copy as a wedding present for a very good friend. Books generally make for unimaginative and inappropriate wedding presents, but not in this case. My friend Ben Endriga not only is a good economist and pianist, he would also most likely enjoy reading the lead essay.