Research Seminar on Diversity and Development Jan Fidrmuc "Beautiful Minds: Physical Attractiveness and Research Productivity in Economics"

HSE International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development (ICSID) and NES Center for the Study of Diversity and Social Interactions are pleased to announce their next joint Research Seminar on Diversity and Development.

The seminar will take place in the HSE building at 26-4 Shabolovka str., room 4322, at 3.00 p.m. on Thursday, July 19, 2018.

Working language of the seminar is English.

We would like to ask everyone who requires an HSE pass to send an e-mail to Olga Masyutina omasyutina(at)hse.ru (stating your name, surname, your affiliation and contact e-mail address) until 5 p.m., July 18.

Abstract: We study the impact of physical attractiveness of on productivity. Previous literature found a strong impact on wages and career progression, which can be either due to discrimination in favor of good-looking people or can reflect an association between attractiveness and productivity. We utilize a context where there is no or limited face-to-face interaction, academic publishing, so that scope for beauty-based discrimination should be limited. Using data on around 2,000 authors of journal publications in economics, we find a significantly positive effect of authors’ attractiveness on both journal quality and citations. However, the impact on citations disappears after we control for journal quality.

We look forward to seeing you!
Kind regards,
ICSID and CSDSI teams