Business Success and Businesses' Beauty Capital

Ciska M. Bosman, Gerard Pfann, Jeff E. Biddle, Daniel S. Hamermesh

NBER Working Paper No. 6083
Issued in July 1997
NBER Program(s):   LS

We examine whether a difference in pay for beauty is supported by different productivity of people according to looks. Using a sample of advertising firms, we find that those firms with better-looking executives have higher revenues and faster growth than do otherwise identical firms whose executives are not so good-looking. The impact on revenue far exceeds the likely effect of beauty on the executives' wages. This suggests that their beauty creates firm-specific investments, in the form of improved relationships within work groups, the returns to which are shared by the firm and the executive.

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Published: "Business success and businesses' beauty capital" Economics Letters, Vol 93, 3 (December 2006) Pages 201-207 Gerard A. Pfann, Jeff E. Biddle, Daniel S. Hamermesh and Ciska M. Bosman

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