The beauty premium of politicians in office

Abstract

The beauty premium in politics shows that attractive politicians are more likely to get elected to office than less attractive politicians, but little is known about whether beauty also shapes the behavior of members of parliament (MPs) once in office. We use newly collected data on the attractiveness and parliamentary 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 opportunities created by attractiveness, we find that more attractive MPs have 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.