The Beauty Premium of Politicians in Office

Klaus Gründler, Niklas Potrafke and Timo Wochner

No 404, ifo Working Paper Series from ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich

Abstract: The beauty premium in politics shows that attractive politicians are more likely to get elected to ofce than less attractive politicians, but little is known about whether beauty also shapes the behavior of members of parliament (MPs) once in ofce. We use newly collected data on the attractiveness and parliamen tary activity of 866 MPs in the German Bundestag over the period 2009-2017 to examine the link between beauty and parliamentary work. Our results show that attractive MPs are more likely to be absent from parliament and less active in labor-intensive background work than others. Consistent with our hypothesis of higher outside earnings and appear more often on television talk shows. Our results suggest that attractive MPs re-allocate their time from parliamentary work to other activity that increases their income and popularity.

Keywords: attractiveness of politicians; parliamentary activity; members of parliament; political economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H11 J45 J70 K40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-lma and nep-pol
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Journal Article: The beauty premium of politicians in office (2024)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ifowps:_404

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