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Changing Looks and Changing "Discrimination:" The Beauty of Economists

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Daniel S. Hamermesh

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Abstract

I estimate the effects of changing an ascriptive characteristic on a market outcome while keeping the average amount of information unchanged. Taking advantage of candidates' multiple appearances in elections to office in a professional association and of the presence of different photographs accompanying the ballots, I show that exogenous increases in beauty raise a candidate's chance of success. The results support the inference that differential outcomes are inherent in agents' responses to an ascriptive characteristic and do not stem from correlations with unobserved differences in productivity-enhancing characteristics.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 11712.

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Date of creation: Oct 2005
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11712

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J7 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Joshua Angrist & Eric Bettinger & Eric Bloom & Michael Kremer, 2004. "Long-Term Consequences of Secondary School Vouchers: Evidence from Administrative Records in Colombia," Natural Field Experiments 0005, The Field Experiments Website. [Downloadable!]
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  2. Claudia Goldin & Cecilia Rouse, 2000. "Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of "Blind" Auditions on Female Musicians," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 715-741, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Hamermesh, Daniel S & Biddle, Jeff E, 1994. "Beauty and the Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1174-94, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Biddle, Jeff E & Hamermesh, Daniel S, 1998. "Beauty, Productivity, and Discrimination: Lawyers' Looks and Lucre," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(1), pages 172-201, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Neumark, David, 1996. "Sex Discrimination in Restaurant Hiring: An Audit Study," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 111(3), pages 915-41, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Doris Weichselbaumer, 2003. "Sexual orientation discrimination in hiring," Natural Field Experiments 0002, The Field Experiments Website. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Heckman, James J, 1998. "Detecting Discrimination," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 101-16, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Pfann, Gerard A. & Biddle, Jeff E. & Hamermesh, Daniel S. & Bosman, Ciska M., 2000. "Business success and businesses' beauty capital," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 201-207, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Blank, Rebecca M, 1991. "The Effects of Double-Blind versus Single-Blind Reviewing: Experimental Evidence from The American Economic Review," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1041-67, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Andrew Leigh & Tirta Susilo, 2008. "Is Voting Skin-Deep? Estimating the Effect of Candidate Ballot Photographs on Election Outcomes," CEPR Discussion Papers 583, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Poutvaara, Panu & Jordahl, Henrik & Berggren, Niclas, 2009. "Faces of Politicians: Babyfacedness Predicts Inferred Competence but Not Electoral Success," Working Paper Series 803, Research Institute of Industrial Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Niclas Berggren & Henrik Jordahl & Panu Poutvaara, 2006. "The Looks of a Winner: Beauty, Gender and Electoral Success," IZA Discussion Papers 2311, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. John J. Donohue III, 2005. "The Law and Economics of Antidiscrimination Law," NBER Working Papers 11631, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Daniel J. Benjamin & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2006. "Thin-Slice Forecasts of Gubernatorial Elections," NBER Working Papers 12660, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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