Why Beauty Matters
The authors split the beauty premium into its parts using an experimental labour market in which 'employers' set the wages of 'workers' who solve a maze, a skill the authors show is unaffected by attractiveness. They find a sizeable premium and three channels behind it: attractive workers are more confident, and confidence raises wages; at the same confidence, employers wrongly judge attractive workers to be more able; and, once confidence is controlled for, attractive workers have stronger oral and social skills, which raise their pay when they deal with employers. They propose the method for studying the sources of discriminatory pay differences in other settings.
The authors split the beauty premium into its parts using an experimental labour market in which 'employers' set the wages of 'workers' who solve a maze, a skill the authors show is unaffected by attractiveness. They find a sizeable premium and three channels behind it: attractive workers are more confident, and confidence raises wages; at the same confidence, employers wrongly judge attractive workers to be more able; and, once confidence is controlled for, attractive workers have stronger oral and social skills, which raise their pay when they deal with employers. They propose the method for studying the sources of discriminatory pay differences in other settings.
Written from the abstract read 2026-10-27 via OpenAlex.
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Mobius, M. M., & Rosenblat, T. S. (2006). 'Why beauty matters.' American Economic Review, 96(1), 222-235.