The right look: Conservative politicians look better than their voters reward it

Arbeitspapier

Previous research has established that good-looking political candidates win more votes. We extend this line of research by examining differences between parties on the left and on the right of the political spectrum. Our study combines data on personal votes in real elections with a web survey in which 2,513 non-Finnish respondents evaluated the facial appearance of 1,357 Finnish political candidates. We find that political candidates on the right are better looking in both municipal and parliamentary elections and also have a larger beauty premium in municipal, but not in parliamentary, elections. We discuss possible explanations for these patterns, based on the fact that municipal candidates are relatively unknown.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 3310

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior ; Public Sector Labor Markets ; Labor Discrimination: General
• Subject: beauty ; elections ; political candidates ; appearance ; ideology ; parties ; Wahlkampf ; Körpergewicht ; Wahlverhalten ; Ideologie ; Public Choice ; Finnland

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Berggren, Niclas ; Jordahl, Henrik ; Poutvaara, Panu
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
• (where): Munich
• (when): 2010

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/46573
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET