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Business Success and Businesses' Beauty Capital

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Author Info
Ciska M. Bosman
Gerard Pfann
Jeff E. Biddle
Daniel S. Hamermesh

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Abstract

We examine whether a difference in pay for beauty is supported by different productivity of people according to looks. Using a sample of advertising firms, we find that those firms with better-looking executives have higher revenues and faster growth than do otherwise identical firms whose executives are not so good-looking. The impact on revenue far exceeds the likely effect of beauty on the executives' wages. This suggests that their beauty creates firm-specific investments, in the form of improved relationships within work groups, the returns to which are shared by the firm and the executive.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 6083.

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Date of creation: Jul 1997
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6083

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing

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. 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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  2. Hashimoto, Masanori, 1981. "Firm-Specific Human Capital as a Shared Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 475-82, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Bruce Johnson, W. & Magee, Robert P. & Nagarajan, Nandu J. & Newman, Harry A., 1985. "An analysis of the stock price reaction to sudden executive deaths : Implications for the managerial labor market," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1-3), pages 151-174, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Audretsch, David B & Mahmood, Talat, 1995. "New Firm Survival: New Results Using a Hazard Function," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 77(1), pages 97-103, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. 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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  6. Welch, F, 1970. "Education in Production," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(1), pages 35-59, Jan.-Feb.. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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(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. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 2005. "Changing Looks and Changing "Discrimination:" The Beauty of Economists," NBER Working Papers 11712, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Giam Pietro Cipriani & Angelo Zago, 2005. "Productivity or Discrimination? Beauty and the Exams," Working Papers 18, Università di Verona, Dipartimento di Scienze economiche. [Downloadable!]
  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. Michele Belot, & V. Bhaskar & Jeroen van de Ven, 2007. "Is Beauty only Skin-deep? Disentangling the Beauty Premium on a Game Show," Economics Discussion Papers 624, University of Essex, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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