TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Chiappori, Pierre-André
AU  - Oreffice, Sonia
AU  - Quintana-Domeque, Climent
        TI  - Fatter Attraction: Anthropometric and Socioeconomic Characteristics in the Marriage Market
        PY  - 2009/Nov/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 4594
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp4594
        AB  - We construct a matching model on the marriage market along more than one characteristic, where individuals have preferences over physical attractiveness (proxied by anthropometric characteristics) and market and household productivity of potential mates (proxied by socioeconomic characteristics), with a certain degree of substitutability between them. Men and women assess each other through an index combining these various attributes, so the matching is one-dimensional. We estimate the trade-offs among these characteristics using data from the PSID and the ECHP, finding evidence of compensation between anthropometric and socioeconomic characteristics. An additional unit of husband's (wife's) BMI can be compensated by a 0.3%-increase (0.15%-increase) in husband's (wife's) average (predicted) wage. Interestingly, these findings suggest that female physical attractiveness plays a larger role in men's assessment of a woman than male physical attractiveness does for women.
        KW  - BMI
KW  - marriage market
KW  - wages
KW  - height
KW  - earnings
        ER  -