Beauty and productivity in academic publishing

Arbeitspapier

Academic publishing represents a field in which the opportunity for discrimination based on appearance should be limited since intellectual skills must play a key role. In this work, I document the beauty effect for economic scholars. Using unique data on academics who published their research papers in economic journals in 2017 I test whether more attractive academics are more productive. I found evidence that appearance is positively and significantly associated with the success of research output as measured by the higher number of citations. However, the effect magnitude is rather small, and it becomes even smaller when I control for the ranking of the Ph.D. granting institution.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IES Working Paper ; No. 10/2023

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Survey Methods; Sampling Methods ; Personnel Economics: Firm Employment Decisions; Promotions
• Subject: Beauty bias ; productivity ; discrimination ; academic publishing

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Bortnikova, Kseniya
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Charles University in Prague, Institute of Economic Studies (IES)
• (where): Prague
• (when): 2023

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/286339
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET