The Market for Pornography in Italy: Empirical Data and Theoretical Considerations

The market for pornography is of great economic relevance but has been totally ignored in economic investigation. The present paper focuses on the demand side of this market, with the main aim of proposing a preliminary theoretical assessment of the behavior of pornography purchasers. In this respect, certain contributions on hedonic adaptation have proved particularly useful, whereas models of addiction have proved less useful than might be expected. To link theoretical analysis more closely to reality, the first half of the paper describes the pornography industry in Italy, and may thus be considered a sort of case study.