Daniel S. Hamermesh

why attractive people are more successful

Beauty pays

How beauty leads to better jobs, better wages, and better spouses Most of us know there is a payoff to looking good, and in the quest for beauty we spend countless hours and billions of dollars on personal grooming, cosmetics, and plastic surgery. But how much better off are the better looking? Based on the evidence, quite a lot. The first book to seriously measure the advantages of beauty, Beauty Pays demonstrates how society favors the beautiful and how better-looking people experience startling but undeniable benefits in all aspects of life. Noted economist Daniel Hamermesh shows that the attractive are more likely to be employed, work more productively and profitably, receive more substantial pay, obtain loan approvals, negotiate loans with better terms, and have more handsome and highly educated spouses. Hamermesh explains why this happens and what it means for the beautiful—and the not-so-beautiful—among us. Exploring whether a universal standard of beauty exists, Hamermesh illustrates how attractive workers make more money, how these amounts differ by gender, and how looks are valued differently based on profession. He considers whether extra pay for good-looking people represents discrimination, and, if so, who is discriminating. Hamermesh investigates the commodification of beauty in dating and how this influences the search for intelligent or high-earning mates, and even examines whether government programs should aid the ugly. He also discusses whether the economic benefits of beauty will persist into the foreseeable future and what the "looks-challenged" can do to overcome their disadvantage. Reflecting on a sensitive issue that touches everyone, Beauty Pays proves that beauty's rewards are anything but superficial.

Why Attractive People Are More Successful

Beauty Pays

Solomon W. Polachek

Time Use in Economics contains original research on new aspects of time use compiled by Daniel S. Hamermesh, a long-time path-breaking labor economist leader in analyzing time use data, and Solomon W. Polachek, a pioneer in gender-related labor market research.

Time Use in Economics

The purpose of Economics Is Everywhere by Daniel S. Hamermesh is to illustrate the wide range of daily activities to which an economic way of thinking can be applied. Each of the 401 vignettes is inspired by an everyday event that students came up with or were inspired by news articles, films, personal life or popular culture. The book is organized into three parts to follow the topical arrangement of a typical introductory microeconomic textbook. These vignettes apply what students learn in their introductory microeconomics textbook. They focus on the student's ability to apply formal analysis with myriad of examples that come out of their daily activities. After studying this applications/issues book, students will be able to read a newspaper or magazine and understand their own daily activities in a new, economic way---and as a result understand the economics at work around them.

Economics is Everywhere

James M. Johannes

Food Stamps represent nearly $11 billion of personal income in the United States. The coupons that are issued to represent the purchasing power available to recipients are also reserves for the commercial banking system. This study asks how closely these coupons are substitutable for what is usually considered as money, and how well Food Stamps function as a fiscal stabilizer (whether they increase consumption more than does ordinary income). The results, based on estimates for 1959-1981, suggest that Food Stamp coupons are perfectly substitutable for Ml, and a revised money-supply series including "Food Stamp Money" is included in an Appendix. Estimates of consumption functions indicate that the MPC out of income in the form of Food Stamps is higher than that out of ordinary income. Taken together, the results suggest that the Food Stamp program is an automatic fiscal and monetary stabilizer -- under its provisions, both the money stock and disposable income are increased during a recession

Food Stamps as Money and Income

Time is the ultimate scarce resource and thus quintessentially a topic for economics, which studies scarcity. Starting with the observation that time is increasingly valuable given competing demands as we have more things we can buy and do, Spending Time provides engaging insights into how people use their time and what determines their decisions about spending their time. That our time is limited by the number of hours in a day, days in a year, and years in our lives means that we face constraints and thus choices that involve trade-offs. We sleep, eat, have fun, watch TV, and not least we work. How much we dedicate to each, and why we do so, is intriguing and no one is better placed to shed light on similarities and differences than Daniel S. Hamermesh, the leading authority on time-use. Here he explores how people use their time, including across countries, regions, cultures, class, and gender. Americans now work more than people in other rich countries, but as recently as the late 1970s they worked no more than others; and they also work longer into older age. Men and women do different things at different times of the day, which affects how well-off they feel. Both the arrival of children and retirement create major shocks to existing time uses, with differences between the sexes. Higher incomes and higher wage rates lead people to hurry more, both on and off the job, and higher wage rates lead people to cut back on activities that take time away from work. Being stressed for time is central to modern life, and Hamermesh shows who is rushed, and why. With Americans working more than people in France, Germany, the U.K., Japan and other rich countries, the book offers a simple but radical proposal for changing Americans' lives and reducing the stress about time.

The Most Valuable Resource

Spending Time

Demonstrates how society favors the beautiful and how better-looking people experience startling but undeniable benefits in various aspects of life. This title shows that the attractive are more likely to be employed, work more productively and profitably, negotiate loans with better terms, and have more handsome and highly educated spouses.

Daniel S. Hamermesh

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