Beauty is the promise of happiness?

European Economic Review, 2013, vol. 64, issue C, 351-368

Abstract: We measure the impact of individuals' looks on life satisfaction and happiness. Using six data sets, from Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States, we construct beauty measures in a number of different ways. Beauty raises happiness: A one standard-deviation change in beauty generates about 0.08 standard deviations of additional satisfaction/happiness among men, 0.07 among women. The finding is robust to a rare opportunity to measure it using an instrumental variables approach. Accounting for a wide variety of covariates, particularly educational, marital, and labor-market outcomes that might be affected by beauty, the gross effects are roughly halved, with small reductions arising from the impact of beauty on monetary outcomes.

Keywords: Happiness; Beauty; Measurement error (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (41)

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Working Paper: "Beauty Is the Promise of Happiness"? (2011)
Working Paper: "Beauty Is the Promise of Happiness"? (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:64:y:2013:i:c:p:351-368

DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2013.09.005

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