3: Markets for Sex: Empirics

In the previous chapter, it was argued that the sex trade by definition constitutes a form of market exchange. This holds the promise that the phenomenon can be studied with the general toolbox of economists studying markets. Indeed, price and quantity, or supply and demand, are central ordering principles in the functioning of commercial sex, could be argued. However, there is another side to this coin, too. Although the lens of commercial sex as a market exchange is helpful, it should not cloud the fact that prostitution markets differ in essential respects from the mainstream examples that would usually spring to mind.