I've written a number of times about the beauty premium in the labour market (see the list of links at the end of this post). There is robust evidence that more attractive people get paid more. The evidence is neatly summarised Daniel Hamermesh's excellent book Beauty Pays (that I reviewed here).
In the latest contribution to this evidence base, Galina Hale (University of California, Santa Cruz), Tali Regev (Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya) and Yona Rubinstein (London School of Economics) look at the effects of attractiveness on the careers of recent PhD graduates from top PhD programmes in the U.S. They don't have data on these economists' earnings, but they are able to look at the quality of PhD programme they graduate from, where they get their first job (and later jobs), and the quality of their academic output (based on citations). Specifically, they have data on 752 PhD graduates from the top ten economics PhD programmes in the U.S, who graduated over the period from 2002 to 2006, and follow them up to 2017. They find that:
...appearance matters for individuals' academic success in persistent ways. First we observe that among the students in top PhD programs women are more attractive than men, suggesting that attractive women are more likely to get selected into these elite programs. For subsequent career outcomes we find that attractive individuals are more successful than plain looking individuals. They are more likely to be placed in higher-ranking PhD institutions, and upon graduating, they are more likely to be find jobs in the private sector than jobs in academia or the public sector. Within academia, attractive-looking PhD graduates are also more likely to be placed at higher-ranking institutions for the first job as well as subsequent jobs. Appearance doesn't only predict job placement but, more surprisingly, it also predicts actual research productivity on the job. More attractive economists are cited more overall and per publication. All these effects are rather substantial in magnitude, with one standard deviation increase in attractiveness score increasing the probability of an above-median outcome of job placement and citation count by 7-9 percentage points, depending on the outcome considered.
The significant effect on citations is the most difficult to understand theoretically, since in theory attractiveness shouldn't affect the underlying quality of the research. However, Hale et al. offer a suggested explanation, that:
...attractive people become more confident and therefore might be more likely to solicit constructive comments, and, as a result, may produce higher quality papers that are cited more. Due to higher confidence, they might be more likely to submit their papers to conferences and therefore their papers will get higher exposures. They might also be more charismatic when presenting their papers and therefore provide better marketing for their papers and, as \good presenters," might be more likely to be invited to seminars and future conferences.
All of that seems plausible, but I think we need some more research to demonstrate that this is the mechanism that underlies those results. It would also be interesting to know whether it applies to economists that are further down the pecking order, rather than just those who graduated from top-ten PhD programmes (I'm asking for a friend, really). In any case, add this research to the large (and growing) evidence for beauty premiums in labour markets.
[HT: Marginal Revolution]
Read more:
- Blonds have more fun (or rather, they get paid more)
- The beauty premium in undergraduate study is small, and more attractive women major in economics
- The beauty premium in the LPGA
- The beauty and height premiums in the labour market
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