IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/iecrev/v60y2019i2p851-877.html

Beauty Premium And Marriage Premium In Search Equilibrium: Theory And Empirical Test

Author

Listed:
  • Roberto Bonilla
  • Francis Kiraly
  • John Wildman

Abstract

We propose a theoretical explanation for the so‐called beauty premium. Our approach relies entirely on search frictions and the fact that physical appearance plays an important role in attracting a marriage partner. We analyze the interaction between frictional labor and marriage markets, making use of what we label constrained job search. The optimal strategy entails different reservation wages for different men, and we establish the existence of a search equilibrium characterized by a beauty premium and/or marriage premium. Predicted profiles of premia allow for potential falsification tests and point to relevant empirical evidence in support of our theory.

Suggested Citation

  • Roberto Bonilla & Francis Kiraly & John Wildman, 2019. "Beauty Premium And Marriage Premium In Search Equilibrium: Theory And Empirical Test," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 60(2), pages 851-877, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:iecrev:v:60:y:2019:i:2:p:851-877
    DOI: 10.1111/iere.12370
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/iere.12370
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/iere.12370?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Roberto Bonilla & Alberto Trejos, 2021. "Marriage and employment participation with wage bargaining in search equilibrium," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 68(4), pages 517-533, September.
    2. Roberto Bonilla & Francis Kiraly & John Wildman, 2022. "Marriage premium with productivity heterogeneity," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(1), pages 317-328, January.
    3. Roberto Bonilla & Alberto Trejos, 2015. "Marriage, Employment Participation and Home Production in Search Equilibrium," Monetaria, Centro de Estudios Monetarios Latinoamericanos, CEMLA, vol. 0(1), pages 1-23, january-j.
    4. Roberto Bonilla & Francis Kiraly, 2024. "Male investment in schooling with frictional labour and marriage markets," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 359-385, June.
    5. Bonilla, Roberto & Malo, Miguel Á. & Pinto, Fernando, 2022. "Marriage wage premium with contract type heterogeneity," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    6. Roberto Bonilla & Francis Z. Kiraly & John Wildman, 2017. "Marriage Premium and Class," CESifo Working Paper Series 6550, CESifo.
    7. Roberto Bonilla & Francis Kiraly & Miguel Ángel Malo & Fernando Pinto Hernández, 2024. "Marriage, Divorce and Reservation Wages," CESifo Working Paper Series 11123, CESifo.
    8. Andrea Fazio, 2021. "Beautiful inequality: Are beautiful people more willing to redistribute?," Working Papers in Public Economics 194, Department of Economics and Law, Sapienza University of Rome.
    9. Fazio, Andrea, 2022. "Attractiveness and preferences for redistribution," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    10. Roberto Bonilla & Adrian Masters, 2023. "Endogenous gender-based discrimination in a model of simultaneous frictional labor and marriage markets," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 11(1), pages 107-119, April.
    11. Roberto Bonilla & Francis Kiraly, 2020. "Constrained Fixed Sample Search," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(2), pages 1645-1650.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    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:wly:iecrev:v:60:y:2019:i:2:p:851-877. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deupaus.html .

    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.