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Dress for Success -- Does Primping Pay?

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Author Info
Daniel S. Hamermesh
Xin Meng
Junsen Zhang

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Abstract

A unique survey of Shanghai residents in 1996 that combined labor-market information, appraisals of respondents' beauty, and household expenditures allows us to examine the relative magnitudes of the investment and consumption components of women's spending on beauty-enhancing goods and services. We find that beauty raises women's earnings (and to a lesser extent, men's) adjusted for a wide range of controls. Additional spending on clothing and cosmetics has a generally positive but decreasing marginal impact on a woman's perceived beauty. The relative sizes of these effects demonstrate that such purchases pay back at most 10 percent of each unit of expenditure in the form of higher earnings. Most such spending represents consumption.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 7167.

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Date of creation: Jun 1999
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7167

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
J19 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Other
J70 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - General

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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. John Strauss & Duncan Thomas, 1998. "Health, Nutrition, and Economic Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(2), pages 766-817, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Junsen Zhang & William Chan, 1999. "Dowry and Wife's Welfare: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(4), pages 786-808, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. 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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  4. Hanushek, Eric A, 1996. "Measuring Investment in Education," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 9-30, Fall. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Lundberg, S.J. & Pollak, R.A. & Wales, T.J., 1994. "Do Husbands and Wives Pool Their Resources? Evidence from U.K. Child Benefit," Discussion Papers in Economics at the University of Washington 94-6, Department of Economics at the University of Washington.
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  1. Claudia Sanhueza & Rodrigo Bravo & Oscar Giusti, 2008. "La Belleza y su Efecto en el Mercado Laboral: Evidencia para Chile," ILADES-Georgetown University Working Papers inv204, Ilades-Georgetown University, School of Economics and Bussines. [Downloadable!]
  2. 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!]
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  3. Naci Mocan & Erdal Tekin, 2006. "Ugly Criminals," IZA Discussion Papers 2048, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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