Documento de trabajo
Does facial structure explain differences in students evaluations of teaching? the role of perceived dominance
Fecha
2019Registro en:
Serie Documentos de Trabajo No. 483, pp. 1 - 38, Mayo, 2019
Autor
Paredes Haz, Valentina
Pino Emhart, Francisco
Díaz, David
Institución
Resumen
Dominance is usually viewed as a positive male attribute, but this is not typically
the case for women. Using a novel dataset of teacher evaluations in a school of Business
and Economics of a selective university, we construct the face width-to-height ratio
(fWHR) as a proxy for dominance to assess whether individuals with a higher ratio
obtain better student evaluations of teaching. Our results suggest that a higher fWHR
is associated with a better evaluation for male faculty, while the opposite is the case
for females. These results are not due to differences in teachers’ productivity. Because
teacher evaluations are relevant for pay and promotion, this might contribute to the
underrepresentation of women in economics.