Beauty in the academic labour market

The labour market returns to "beauty" have been studied by various authors. However it is not something that you might expect to be a feature of academia. But Hot or Not: How appearance affects earnings and productivity in academia by Sen, Voia & Woolley demonstrates a surprisingly large wage premium to academics judged "hot" by students in the well known ratemyprofessors.com site. Why? Because they're worth it, I suppose. No sniggering at the back, please.

Brendan Walsh on Leaving Cert. Points and University Performance in Economics

Title: Leaving Certificate points and performance in first arts economics: a study of the 1987/88 UCD class
Authors: Walsh, Brendan M.; Garvey, Padhraic
Date: Apr-1989; UCD Centre for Economic Research Working Paper Series WP89/6

This paper shows that there is a weak association between Leaving. Cert points-scores and university performance in Economics. The authors recommend that the optimal scoring scheme for entry to university Economics would give more weight to Mathematics. It is also recommended that Irish should be given less weight, or indeed none at all. Finally, the authors recommend further research that would include socio-economic and psychological factors amongst the variables explaining academic performance at university.