Francisco Gallego (PUC) will present:

"What's Behind Her Smile? Looks, Self-Esteem, and Labor Market Outcomes"

at 3pm on Wednesday, September 23, 2015 in 310 Silsby


Please sign up for a meeting, lunch, or dinner at:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10th2wSybBMLAMqgZztfE4thpCjo8FDJvDogVcsDNDck/edit?usp=sharing


Abstract


Good dental health is correlated with economic, social, and psychological outcomes but there is little causal evidence to demonstrate the effects of improvements in dental health on these outcomes. This paper reports the results from a randomized experiment designed to evaluate the effects of offering a dental care treatment in Chile. We present the results using both a short-term follow-up (after about one year the treatment was delivered) and a medium-term follow-up (after about three years the treatment was delivered). In the short run, we find that the treatment (i) significantly increased measures of oral health for men and women, (ii) had significant effects on self-esteem for women only, and (iii) also affected positively both employment rates and earnings for women. In the medium run, the effects on measures of dental health and self-esteem are still significant but slightly smaller in magnitude and we do not find statistical differences between the treatment  and the control groups in terms of labor market outcomes, with the exception of employment rates for women with low levels of self esteem at baseline.

We document that the effects on labor market outcomes are especially concentrated among women with low levels of self-esteem and missing several frontal teeth before the intervention. We conjecture that missing a smile or having low self-esteem are attributes that are significantly more important for low income women because of economic, psychological, and social reasons.





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