IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/15893.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do Looks Matter for an Academic Career in Economics?

Author

Listed:
  • Hale, Galina
  • Regev, Tali
  • Rubinstein, Yona

Abstract

We document appearance effects in the economics profession. Using unique data on PhD graduates from ten of the top economics departments in the United States we test whether more attractive individuals are more likely to succeed. We find robust evidence that appearance has predictive power for job outcomes and research productivity. Attractive individuals are more likely to study at higher ranked PhD institutions and are more likely to be placed at higher-ranking academic institutions not only for their first job, but also for jobs as many as 15 years after their graduation, even when we control for the ranking of PhD institution and first job. Appearance also predicts the success of research output: while it does not predict the number of papers an individual writes, it predicts the number of citations for a given number of papers, again even when we control for the ranking of the PhD institution and first job. All these effects are robust, statistically significant, and substantial in magnitude.

Suggested Citation

  • Hale, Galina & Regev, Tali & Rubinstein, Yona, 2021. "Do Looks Matter for an Academic Career in Economics?," CEPR Discussion Papers 15893, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15893
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP15893
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joseph G. Altonji & Charles R. Pierret, 2001. "Employer Learning and Statistical Discrimination," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 313-350.
    2. Lee Cronbach, 1951. "Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 16(3), pages 297-334, September.
    3. James J. Heckman & Sidharth Moktan, 2020. "Publishing and promotion in economics - The tyranny of the Top Five," Vox eBook Chapters, in: Sebastian Galliani & Ugo Panizza (ed.), Publishing and Measuring Success in Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 1, pages 23-32, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    4. Harper, Barry, 2000. "Beauty, Stature and the Labour Market: A British Cohort Study," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 62(0), pages 771-800, Special I.
    5. Victoria Anauati & Sebastian Galiani & Ramiro H. Gálvez, 2016. "Quantifying The Life Cycle Of Scholarly Articles Across Fields Of Economic Research," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(2), pages 1339-1355, April.
    6. Weilong Bi & Ho Fai Chan & Benno Torgler, 2020. "“Beauty” premium for social scientists but “unattractiveness” premium for natural scientists in the public speaking market," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 7(1), pages 1-9, December.
    7. López Bóo, Florencia & Rossi, Martín A. & Urzúa, Sergio S., 2013. "The labor market return to an attractive face: Evidence from a field experiment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 170-172.
    8. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 2018. "Citations in Economics: Measurement, Uses, and Impacts," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(1), pages 115-156, March.
    9. Berinsky, Adam J. & Huber, Gregory A. & Lenz, Gabriel S., 2012. "Evaluating Online Labor Markets for Experimental Research: Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(3), pages 351-368, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Green, Colin P. & Wilson, Luke B. & Zhang, Anwen, 2023. "Beauty, underage drinking, and adolescent risky behaviours," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 215(C), pages 153-166.
    2. Hamermesh, Daniel S. & Leigh, Andrew K., 2022. "“Beauty too rich for use”: Billionaires’ assets and attractiveness," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    3. Fazio, Andrea, 2022. "Attractiveness and preferences for redistribution," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    4. Popov, Sergey V, 2022. "Tactical Refereeing and Signaling by Publishing," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2022/14, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hale, Galina & Regev, Tali & Rubinstein, Yona, 2023. "Do looks matter for an academic career in economics?," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt8s25m320, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    2. Syed Hasan & Robert Breunig, 2021. "Article length and citation outcomes," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(9), pages 7583-7608, September.
    3. Eleonora Patacchini & Giuseppe Ragusa & Yves Zenou, 2015. "Unexplored dimensions of discrimination in Europe: homosexuality and physical appearance," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(4), pages 1045-1073, October.
    4. Martina Cioni & Giovanni Federico & Michelangelo Vasta, 2021. "The State of the Art of Economic History: The Uneasy Relation with Economics," Working Papers 20210067, New York University Abu Dhabi, Department of Social Science, revised Jun 2021.
    5. Martina Cioni & Giovanni Federico & Michelangelo Vasta, 2023. "Is economic history changing its nature? Evidence from top journals," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 17(1), pages 23-48, January.
    6. Martina Cioni & Govanni Federico & Michelangelo Vasta, 2018. "Ninety years of publications in Economic History: evidence from the top five field journals (1927-2017)," Department of Economics University of Siena 791, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    7. Michael E. Rose, 2022. "Small world: Narrow, wide, and long replication of Goyal, van der Leij and Moraga‐Gonzélez (JPE 2006) and a comparison of EconLit and Scopus," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(4), pages 820-828, June.
    8. Eva Sierminska & Karan Singhal, 2023. "Does it pay to be beautiful?," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 161-161, March.
    9. Verónica Amarante & Marisa Bucheli & Mariana Rodríguez Vivas, 2021. "Research networks and publications in Economics. Evidence from a small developing country," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 1121, Department of Economics - dECON.
    10. Matthias Aistleitner & Jakob Kapeller & Stefan Steinerberger, 2018. "Citation Patterns in Economics and Beyond," Working Papers Series 85, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    11. Claude Diebolt & Michael Haupert, 2021. "The Role of Cliometrics in History and Economics," Working Papers of BETA 2021-26, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    12. Erich Battistin & Marco Ovidi, 2022. "Rising Stars: Expert Reviews and Reputational Yardsticks in the Research Excellence Framework," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(356), pages 830-848, October.
    13. Martina Cioni & Giovanni Federico & Michelangelo Vasta, 2020. "The long-term evolution of economic history: evidence from the top five field journals (1927–2017)," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 14(1), pages 1-39, January.
    14. Ralph Stinebrickner & Todd Stinebrickner & Paul Sullivan, 2019. "Beauty, Job Tasks, and Wages: A New Conclusion about Employer Taste-Based Discrimination," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(4), pages 602-615, October.
    15. LIU Xing & SIERMINSKA Eva, 2014. "Evaluating the effect of beauty on labor market outcomes: A review of the literature," LISER Working Paper Series 2014-11, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    16. Carlo D'Ippoliti, 2021. "“Many‐Citedness”: Citations Measure More Than Just Scientific Quality," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(5), pages 1271-1301, December.
    17. Kim‐Sau Chung & Meng‐Yu Liang & Melody Lo, 2022. "On the information contents of indirect citations," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(1), pages 156-173, February.
    18. Martina Cioni & Giovanni Federico & Michelangelo Vasta, 2022. "Persistence studies: a new kind of economic history?," Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Springer;Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR), vol. 42(3), pages 227-248, December.
    19. Ying Cao & Feng Guan & Zengquan Li & Yong George Yang, 2020. "Analysts’ Beauty and Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(9), pages 4315-4335, September.
    20. Jenny Bourne & Nathan Grawe & Nathan D. Grawe & Michael Hemesath & Maya Jensen, 2022. "Scholarly Activity among Economists at Liberal Arts Colleges: A Life Cycle Analysis," Working Papers 2022-01, Carleton College, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Beauty; Appearance; Economists *;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • M51 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Firm Employment Decisions; Promotions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15893. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.