Beauty in the Classroom: Professors' Pulchritude and Putative Pedagogical Productivity / Daniel Hamermesh, Amy M. Parker.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hamermesh, Daniel.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Parker, Amy M.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w9853.

NBER working paper series no. w9853

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Beauty in the Classroom

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2003.

Summary:

Adjusted for many other determinants, beauty affects earnings; but does it lead directly to the differences in productivity that we believe generate earnings differences? We take a large sample of student instructional ratings for a group of university professors, acquire six independent measures of their beauty and a number of other descriptors of them and their classes. Instructors who are viewed as better looking receive higher instructional ratings, with the impact of a move from the 10th to the 90th percentile of beauty being substantial. This impact exists within university departments and even within particular courses, and is larger for male than for female instructors. Disentangling whether this outcome represents productivity or discrimination is, as with the issue generally, probably impossible.

Notes:

Print version record

July 2003.