Publication Type

Working Paper

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

1-2014

Abstract

We examine the impact of beauty on the academic career success of tenure-track accounting professors at top business schools in America, and show that beauty plays a significant role. Specifically, after controlling for gender, ethnicity, publication history, work experience, and quality of alma mater, more attractive professors obtain better first school placements post-PhD and are granted tenure in a shorter period of time. Interestingly, there is no incremental benefit of attractiveness for the career progression from associate to full professor. These findings are consistent with our conjecture that when the signal of an individual’s potential is noisy, beauty becomes a proxy for an individual’s intellectual ability and social competency. The role played by beauty in hiring and promotion diminishes when the individual’s ability and competency become apparent over time.

Keywords

Beauty, Accounting, Career, Labor market

Discipline

Accounting | Organizational Behavior and Theory

Research Areas

Financial Performance Analysis

First Page

1

Last Page

58

Publisher

SSRN

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