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The economics of the male pill
Might there soon be a pill for men? Standard theories of tax incidence (borrowing from the Coase theorem) say that if so, it shouldn't much affect the quantity of intercourse. Either the gains from trade are there or they are not. The initial burden of taking the pill might change the distribution of those gains across the sexes, but at the end of the night the final result should still be the same.
Only not!
If you are a man who can credibly signal he is taking such a pill, it is like paying the woman for that final result you so desired. The woman no longer has to perform the costly pill-taking action herself. And indeed the typical equilibrium is in fact that the man does the paying. But with the male pill you are paying her in a way that will flatter her, not insult her. Nice, eh?
The funny thing is, I don't expect the male pill to be popular at all. The key question is to figure out which assumption of the basic model is not satisfied.
One possibility is that women will infer that a man taking the pill is essentially paying other women for sex and she values him less highly.
Another possibility has to do with credibility combined with lags. If it's focal for the woman to be taking the pill, the woman is in any case taking her pill in advance. The male pill would have impact, at the margin, only on women who weren't really planning on having sex at all. And what kind of man spends his energy targeting such women? Yes, some men indeed do target such women, but then we're back to the male pill not really being so popular.
A third possibility is that women in any case want the man to use a condom, if only to prevent STDs. If the man is on the pill, it is harder to make that request without insulting him and thus a woman doesn't want her new paramour to be on the male pill.
Addendum: Megan McArdle adds a fourth explanation.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on April 14, 2008 at 07:37 AM in Economics | Permalink
Comments
I suspect the male pill will be an issue mostly in marriages and long-term committed relationships and won't have much effect on the casual hookup market. And the economics of sex in committed relationships are different.
If there are no health concerns, though, might not the male pill turn out to be popular among single males with multiple sex partners as an insurance policy against financially ruinous paternity suits?
Posted by: Slocum at Apr 14, 2008 7:55:41 AM
A male pill is a good defense from paternity suits.
Posted by: P_Rank at Apr 14, 2008 7:57:55 AM
...if it doesn't affect moods like the female pill does (and sex drive), I know of two families who will be using just that.
Posted by: shawn at Apr 14, 2008 8:02:09 AM
If you are a man who can credibly signal he is taking such a pill . . .
How?
Posted by: James Grimmelmann at Apr 14, 2008 8:06:23 AM
It'll be popular among celebrities and athletes at least ...
Re: #3, would women really believe men who say they're on the male pill? If you're the woman, would you take that chance?
Posted by: Hei Lun Chan at Apr 14, 2008 8:13:39 AM
james: if you're even nominally wealthy, why would you lie?
Posted by: shawn at Apr 14, 2008 8:20:53 AM
Scenarios in the two-pill world:
A woman hoping for an entrapment marriage tells a man she's on the pill. But he's secretly on the other pill to avoid being entrapped. Lucky thing there are DNA tests to back him up later!
A nice sweet girl convinces herself she'll always remain a virgin, but one night in a fit of passion, she gives in -- it's safe, the man says, because he's taken the other pill. But it's only a line he's giving her.
Posted by: anon at Apr 14, 2008 8:26:44 AM
Hello,
Here, I think you're thinking a bit too much. I doubt people put such calculations into their situations here.
Women can trust men being on the pill the same ways men can trust women being on the pill.
Just like a woman, a man can presumably take the pill just for one woman.
As for the impact, women can of course decide to have sex "on impulse," or in the heat of passion, not just by planning in advance. And in any case, women may value men who are willing to make some sacrifices themselves for birth control. Right now, all contraceptive methods except the condom are things women have to take or do - and probably spend money on. I suspect many women would like to change that.
As for STDs, presumably that can be handled the same way it's handled when women take the pill, IUD, sponges, vaginal rings, patches and/or diaphragms. Presumably there are enough couplings in which the partners either don't care about the risks or are able to discuss and eliminate them that the condom hasn't exactly driven any of these (generally more expensive and more time-consuming to obtain and use) methods off the market.
I think the male pill won't drive them off the market either, but it will certainly have its niche.
Jeff Deutsch
PS: Heck, why can't we have a male Norplant?
Posted by: Jeffrey Deutsch at Apr 14, 2008 8:29:52 AM
The main problem with the male pill is sheer practicality. In women, one egg cell is released per month, according to a fairly precise set of hormonal events. So, dead easy to throw a spanner in the works of this system and stop the egg being released. Men, by contrast don't have this precise hormonal sequence in sperm cell production; we just churn out sperm by the millions each day and every day. So, for the male pill to be effective, you've got to disrupt a far more robust mechanism and do so with better than 99.99% effectiveness or else a few sperm could get past the process and fertilize the woman. This isn't easy; so far nobody's been able to do it, and frankly since doctors and biologists aren't fools and know a very hard challenge with few payoffs when they see one, not many have even attempted it. Besides, what's the market going to be like for the pill, anyway? For couples who want sex but no kids, female pills are much more effective. For the bloke out for a casual shag, the main problem isn't that of siring a bastard somewhere but the chance of picking up one of the myriad varieties of STDs that are about these days. With this in mind, exploring the range of modern condoms is a much better option, since these protect against disease as well as unwanted parentage.
Posted by: Dr Dan H. at Apr 14, 2008 8:38:53 AM
Signaling that you take the pill before you generally agree on having sex would be hard because it's awkward to talk about these things as long as you haven't. I've never heard the chat-up line "What's your policy on using condoms during one-night-stands?"
Posted by: LemmusLemmus at Apr 14, 2008 8:59:09 AM
A male pill is a good defense from paternity suits.
It might be easy to prove that the pill was prescribed to the man, but it could be pretty difficult to prove that the pills were consistently taken at the appropriate times. DNA tests would still be needed to disprove paternity.
I still think the male pill could be popular with men who seek more options for personal control over pregnancy. (I know I took the pill versus she says she did.)
Posted by: Todd at Apr 14, 2008 9:41:34 AM
It seems that generally speaking insurance is purchased by those that have the most to loose or can insure most cheaply. Even with the male pill, the former will still be women, although the latter will shift in the direction of more men providing the insurance.
Posted by: OneEyedMan at Apr 14, 2008 9:50:26 AM
Actually, Megan's "explanation" violates a fundamental (but glossed over) assumption in this scenario: "If you are a man who can credibly signal he is taking such a pill"
So "trust" can not be an issue, or the man is not credibly signaling.
Of course, the only way this scenario makes much sense is if this pill has visible side effects, such as turning the corneas of the man purple.
Posted by: jens fiederer at Apr 14, 2008 9:51:40 AM
The scenario the male pill can protect against is the woman pulling a used condom out of the trash and impregnating herself as a way to pressure the man into marrying her. It happens. The man doesn't have to want to signal anything, he just has to not want to get a woman pregnant.
Posted by: Alex J. at Apr 14, 2008 10:25:46 AM
I think the quantity of sex will decrease because women's chances of trapping a man or securing 18 years of child support payments with an unwanted-by-him pregnancy will decrease, thus lowering the expected value of sex for many women.
Posted by: Jacqueline at Apr 14, 2008 10:30:06 AM
What's the most pointless thing in the world?
A booth selling the male Pill at a Star Trek or D&D convention.
Posted by: Peter at Apr 14, 2008 10:38:50 AM
Why would men be taking it in pill form anyways? Considering you just need a constant dose of the drug there are far better ways to do this besides taking a pill. I'd take it right now if I could. My wife and I don't want to have kids right now, and an extra layer of protection against that would be welcome. My friends would take it as well as protection against casual hook-ups (not necessarily one night stands) from turning into 18 years of child support.
In all reality I've seen the most vigorous objections to male birth control from women, because it takes a lot of power out of their hands.
Posted by: JordanT at Apr 14, 2008 10:48:18 AM
I've *never* heard women object to male birth control -- can you please provide some examples or links?
Posted by: Jacqueline at Apr 14, 2008 11:01:23 AM
A male pill is a good defense from paternity suits.
Back in my day, I would have taken this in a heartbeat, simply to avoid the downside risks of paternity, which are most certainly not limited to paternity suits. Whether I told my partners or not, and how they reacted, would be completely incidental to the intrinsic utility of it.
Market it (slyly) as child support insurance, and it'll fly off the shelves.
Posted by: Dave at Apr 14, 2008 12:04:23 PM
Tyler and Megan are missing the point, and many of the commenters here are dead-on correct.
Advertise this thing not as a failsafe contraceptive, but as sperm-count-reducing paternity-risk mitigation (you can probably cut your R&D costs significantly if it's not expected to be foolproof). Use an aggressive marketing campaign similar to those for beer commercials or for male deodorant sprays such as Axe (marketed as Lynx in some countries). Market it to young men as an aspirational product -- for guys who aspire to get laid a lot. The advertising copy could emphasize empowerment along the lines of "take charge and be in control of your sex life". Some edgy commercials might feature obnoxious whiny children (some European condom makers have already done this) and conniving gold-digging women, with the man getting the last laugh (unlike most commercials nowadays, which tend to portray men unfavorably). Advertise heavily in "lad magazines", sponsor extreme sports and X-Games sporting events, etc.
I predict someone will make a fortune from this.
Posted by: at Apr 14, 2008 1:07:05 PM
Yeah, I'm with Comment #3. How can a man credibly signal he is taking the pill? Taking pills are costly, and most of the costs of not taking the pill are incurred by the female. While I could imagine men and women in a marriage or cohabiting relationship doing this (because then the costs of monitoring are lower), I suspect for casual sexual encounters the signalling story is much weaker.
Posted by: jason voorhees at Apr 14, 2008 1:14:51 PM
The female pill is popular because women do not want to get pregnant. Could they stop taking it because their man is? Even if he is earnest, is he reliable? (When do men refill the gas tank? Women?). More at my other blog.
Posted by: David Zetland at Apr 14, 2008 1:21:20 PM
That condom commercial is great. I'm totally there.
Posted by: liberty at Apr 14, 2008 1:29:39 PM
maybe it's different in the US than in Germany, but what is the big "price tag" everybody attaches to taking the pill?
are we actually talking about the price (which is something like 5 euro/month, which is probably less than for the same amount of condoms) or about taking the thing? or about side-effects?
i still think a male pill is a good idea - just to be sure.
(by the way, @lemmuslemmus: maybe not as the first thing to say - but if you go far enough, this question definitely comes up...)
Posted by: Finja at Apr 14, 2008 1:40:45 PM
As for STDs, presumably that can be handled the same way it's handled when women take the pill, IUD, sponges, vaginal rings, patches and/or diaphragms.
Jeffrey Deutsch,
You mean with a condom?
There are plenty of guys who would take this pill. Hell, I would now and probably would when I wasn't in a long term relationship. I, and many of my friends, am paranoid about getting "trapped" with a baby. Not to mention, this would act as a nice second form of BC (depending on the side effects), which would further reduce the odds of pregnancy. The pill isn't 100% effective, so combining two forms of BC makes it less likely. Not to mention marketing it to couples where the pill causes negative side effects to the woman (weight gain, modd swings, nausea, etc.).
Plus, as costly as the male pill would be, it would probably only cost a co-pay, as it would likely be covered by health insurance.
Posted by: Mo at Apr 14, 2008 1:41:48 PM
