If its true that women prefer wine and a nice TV dinner, and men prefer beer and a pizza, then it might help explain why it could be more expensive to be a woman in Morgantown.

According to the latest edition of the Morgantown MSA Economic Monitor, published by the West Virginia University College of Business and Economics, the purchasing decisions that women make may lead to more expense than for their male counterparts.

From hair cuts to work attire to choices for dinner and drinks, costs vary for men and women, with the higher costs in Morgantown being paid for by women,said Amy Higginbotham, economist at the College of Business and EconomicsBureau of Business and Economic Research.

Higginbotham visited nine Morgantown grocery stores, 10 gas stations, five department stores, among others, and priced 61 items for a national cost-of-living index. This established a comparison of goods and services in Morgantown relative to other cities across the nation that participated in the survey.

Then, she took the comparison a step further by looking at the prices of items and services men might purchase compared to those women might buy.

For example, the cost for a trip to the hair salon, a pair of khakis, a bottle of wine, and dinner at home, for one woman was $10.71 more expensive than a barber-shop haircut, dress shirt, six-pack of beer, a medium pizza that a Morgantown man might choose.

That same shopping trip was $60.43 less expensive in Morgantown than it would be in San Francisco�€the most expensive city for both men and women.

These items were below the national average in Morgantown, but they were even cheaper in Charleston, whose totals were between 7 percent and 11 percent lower than Morgantown,said Higginbotham.

The June edition of the Morgantown MSA Economic Monitor, compiled by the WVU Bureau of Business and Economic Research, contains the full analysis of these trends. The Monitor is a quarterly publication of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research with underwriting support provided in part by Clear Mountain Bank.

Copies of the publication can be found atwww.bber.wvu.edu.