In 1974 the Journal of Political Economy published an article on the "The economics of brushing teeth" by Alan Blinder. It was a light-hearted (or tongue-in-cheek if you pardon the pun) model of how much people should invest in brushing teeth because of the effect it had on their income. It some respects it was prophetic given the subsequent interest on "beauty" and the labour market. A somewhat more serious paper on "The economic value of teeth" appeared recently.
If you are not convinced that perceptions of beauty may depend on matters dental then this latest paper, The influence of visible dental caries on social judgements and overall facial attractiveness amongst undergraduates Karunakaran, T., Gilbert, D., Asimakopoulou, K., Newton, T. Journal of Dentistry, 39(3), 212 - 217 is for you. A great paper, that you should all read. And I don't say just that because, curiously, it cites a paper of mine.
Showing posts with label beauty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beauty. Show all posts
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Beauty in the academic labour market
The labour market returns to "beauty" have been studied by various authors. However it is not something that you might expect to be a feature of academia. But Hot or Not: How appearance affects earnings and productivity in academia by Sen, Voia & Woolley demonstrates a surprisingly large wage premium to academics judged "hot" by students in the well known ratemyprofessors.com site. Why? Because they're worth it, I suppose. No sniggering at the back, please.
Monday, October 12, 2009
How beautiful are our politicians?
Since the competence of our politicians is increasingly in doubt, people might like to ask are they good looking? See this paper for the answer, at least for Australia.
Beautiful Politicians
Amy King, Andrew Leigh
Are beautiful politicians more likely to be elected? To test this, we use evidence from Australia, a country in which voting is compulsory, and in which voters are given ‘How to Vote’ cards depicting photos of the major party candidates as they arrive to vote. Using raters chosen to be representative of the electorate, we assess the beauty of political candidates from major political parties, and then estimate the effect of beauty on voteshare for candidates in the 2004 federal election. Beautiful candidates are indeed more likely to be elected, with a one standard deviation increase in beauty associated with a 1½ – 2 percentage point increase in voteshare.
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:auu:dpaper:616&r=cbe
Beautiful Politicians
Amy King, Andrew Leigh
Are beautiful politicians more likely to be elected? To test this, we use evidence from Australia, a country in which voting is compulsory, and in which voters are given ‘How to Vote’ cards depicting photos of the major party candidates as they arrive to vote. Using raters chosen to be representative of the electorate, we assess the beauty of political candidates from major political parties, and then estimate the effect of beauty on voteshare for candidates in the 2004 federal election. Beautiful candidates are indeed more likely to be elected, with a one standard deviation increase in beauty associated with a 1½ – 2 percentage point increase in voteshare.
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:auu:dpaper:616&r=cbe
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