Fatter Attraction: Anthropometric and Socioeconomic Matching on the Marriage Market

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Chiappori, Pierre-Andre; Oreffice, Sonia; Quintana-Domeque, Climent
• 署名单位: Columbia University; Universitat d'Alacant
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/667941
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 659-695
• 关键词: body-mass index; physical attractiveness; beauty; heights; obesity; BMI

摘要

We construct a marriage market model of matching along multiple dimensions, some of which are unobservable, in which individual preferences can be summarized by a one-dimensional index combining the various characteristics. We show that, under testable assumptions, these indices are ordinally identified and that the male and female trade-offs between their partners' characteristics are overidentified. Using PSID data on married couples, we recover the marginal rates of substitution between body mass index (BMI) and wages or education: men may compensate 1.3 additional units of BMI with a 1 percent increase in wages, whereas women may compensate two BMI units with 1 year of education.