Steven Levitt of Freakonomics fame has written a paper by collecting data from prostitutes and pimps in the Chicago area.

From the FP Passport Blog:

 The findings? Street prostitution yields an average wage of $27 an hour, hardly worth it considering the extraordinary occupational hazards.

What’s particularly interesting is the authors’ section on bargaining and the law. They estimate that roughly 3 percent of all tricks performed by prostitutes who aren’t working with pimps are freebies given to police to avoid arrest. In fact, prostitutes get officially arrested only once per 450 tricks or so, leading the authors to conclude that “a prostitute is more likely to have sex with a police officer than to get officially arrested by one.” When freebies given to gang members are factored in, about one in 20 tricks go solely for protection and the “privilege” of plying their trade.