Kirk Doran, Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Notre Dame, recently released a paper draft, “The Economics of Pornography.” Here are some of the highlights:
- There are at least 40,634 websites that distribute pornographic material on the Internet.
- About 11% of all internet visits are to one of these sites.
- About 14% of the online population in America visits these sites (17 million Americans), spending on average 6.5 minutes per visit.
- About 80% to 90% of these people only access free pornographic material. This free material consists of samples of the pay material, illegally copied versions of the pay material, and amateur material.
- The remaining 3 million Americans who pay for internet pornography pay about $61 per month.
- This generates $2.5 billion in annual revenues for the Internet pornography industry
- Consumption of pornography is spread unevenly according to gender, age, marital status, and religion, and has no clear relationship with education or income.
