Marriage and convenience
I am back from a brief holiday, and that always brings fresh perspectives. I am noticing new things about life in the office and life at home. In both cases there are the petty annoyances. At the office, I find myself increasingly irritated by the loudspeaker that bellows a pre-recorded and irrelevant security announcement whenever I lock my bicycle to the bike racks. At home, I have to put up with my wife's predilection for unreasonably healthy eating.
Of course, in both cases there is give and take. In exchange for putting up with the electronic honking of the security system and for the turnip soup, I am allowed to take my own little liberties. My salary is not docked if I turn up to work late after a trip to the dentist, but I wouldn't want to try the trick if I was billing by the hour.
As at work, so in love. When I was dating I'd work out, brush my teeth after every meal, and always wear clean underwear. Now I'm married I do those things too, of course. Mostly. But I suspect that occasional lapses would, within reason, go unpunished.
What the marriage and the job contract with the Financial Times have in common is that they are long-term arrangements where, in principle, a series of short-term arrangements might do. I have in the past written for the newspaper as a freelancer. Nobody shouted at me for parking my bike, but nobody paid me for going to the dentist either.
There are also many short-term alternatives to "till death do us part". Some cultures even offer temporary marriages: pagans sometimes marry for a year and a day, renewable by mutual consent, while Shia Muslims can arrange fixed-term marriages. Of course, most people who rent motel rooms for a fixed time don't bother with the concept of marriage at all.
So why are some partnerships brief and some permanent? Consider - as economist Paul Joskow of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology did in the 1980s - US coal mining and the coal-burning power industry. On the west coast, coal mines and coal-fired power stations married each other, either by merging or by signing 30-year contracts with great detail about how disputes were to be dealt with.
On the east coast, free love prevailed: power stations did not necessarily locate near the mine head and they often bought coal on the spot market or through relatively short-run contracts.
Professor Joskow was in no doubt as to the reason for the difference. All east-coast mines produced very similar coal, were able to operate profitably at a small scale and were linked by a rich web of transport connections. A power station could pick and choose from month to month which mine would supply it.
On the west coast, the mines were much bigger and each one was unique. Power stations had to tune themselves to deal with a specific mine's output, and would generally be located near the mine head. In such a situation, it would be easy for the mine to exploit the power station by suddenly jacking up the price of coal. The best thing, then, was a merger of interests so that both were on the same team.
Joskow's explanation surely tells you something about when to be a freelancer - perhaps even when to stop playing the field and get married. Like east coast coal mines, it can be attractive to be footloose and fancy-free - provided you have alternatives and as long as you are not required to make serious investments that are specific to the relationship. My own marriage was swiftly followed by a relationship-specific investment. She's nearly two and a half.
“婚姻”经济学
我
刚度过一个短暂假期，假期总会让我产生一些新观点。我注意到了办公室和家庭生活中的新问题。在这两种情况下，都有一些让我讨厌的小事情。在办公室，我发现我越来越受不了那个扩音器，每次我把自行车锁到自行车架上时，这个扩音器就会发出预先录制好的、无关痛痒的安全告示。在家里，我不得不忍受妻子对于健康饮食不合理的偏好。
当然，在这两种情况下，都是既有施也有受。忍受安全系统的电子喇叭和甘蓝汤，可以让我得到自己的少许自由。如果我因为去看牙医而上班迟到，不会因此被扣掉工资，但如果是按小时计薪，我就不会这么做了。
工作如此，爱情也一样。当年约会的时候，我会去做运动，每顿饭后都会刷牙，永远穿着干净的内衣。如今，我结婚了，当然我还会做这些事。多数时候会做。但我觉得偶尔的疏忽未遭惩罚，当然这也是情有可原的。
婚姻和英国《金融时报》雇佣合同的共同之处在于：它们都是长期约定，从理论上说，它们或许也可以用一系列短期协议来代替。过去我曾是这家报纸的自由撰稿人。没有人会在我停自行车时冲我大喊，不过也没有人在我看牙医时还付给我工钱。
除了“直到死亡将我们分离”外，还有许多短期选择。有些文化甚至提供临时婚姻：异教徒(pagans)有时会结婚一年又一天，在双方都同意的情况下可以续签；什叶派穆斯林可以安排固定期限的婚姻。当然，多数按照固定时间租住汽车旅馆的人根本不用理会婚姻的概念。
那么为何有些伙伴关系短暂，有些则是永久的呢？让我们像麻省理工学院(MIT)经济学家保罗?乔斯科(Paul Joskow)上世纪80年代所做的那样，考虑一下美国的煤炭开采和燃煤发电行业的情况吧。在美国西海岸，煤矿和燃煤发电站通过合并或签订30年期的合同而彼此联姻，合同中详细规定了争议的解决办法。
而在东海岸，则流行“自由恋爱”：发电站不一定建在煤矿附近，它们经常在现货市场上购买煤炭，或者与煤矿签订期限较短的合同。
乔斯科教授对造成这种差别的原因非常清楚。所有东海岸煤矿生产的煤都非常类似，小规模运作就能实现盈利，由一个绵密的交通网联在一起。发电站随时都可以挑选为其供应煤炭的煤矿。
在美国西海岸，煤矿规模要大得多，而且每个煤矿都有自己的特色。发电站必须自我调整，适应某个特定煤矿的出产，它们通常都会建在煤矿附近。在这种情况下，煤矿很容易通过突然推高煤价而剥削发电站。因此最佳策略就是将双方的利益结合起来，使两者坐在一条船上。
乔斯科的解释的确给我们一些启示：何时该当一名自由撰稿人――也许甚至何时应停止玩乐去结婚。就像东海岸的煤矿一样，如果你有多种选择，而且不必为这种关系做出大笔专项投资，自由自在、天马行空可能颇具吸引力。我自己结婚之后，很快就有了这种关系带来的特有“投资”。她快要2岁半了。
