If they had just asked Independent Sources, we could have told them without the expense of a study.

The Hooters Effect: NBER Paper Finds Attractiveness of Woman Soliciting Charitable Gift Increases Size of Donation:

This study develops theory and uses a door-to-door fundraising field experiment to explore the economics of charity. We approached nearly 5000 households, randomly divided into four experimental treatments, to shed light on key issues on the demand side of charitable fundraising. Empirical results are in line with our theory: in gross terms, our lottery treatments raised considerably more money than our voluntary contributions treatments. Interestingly, we find that a one standard deviation increase in female solicitor physical attractiveness is similar to that of the lottery incentive.

Okay, so they had to go out and knock on 5000 doors to learn that hotties raise money than physically unattractive women? If they have the resources to conduct this kind of a study, shouldn’t they be focused on poverty abatement or tracking the spread of the avian flu (among physically attractive women)?

By the way, is this how they talk to and about hot women (”one standard deviation increase in female physical attraction”)? “Hey Chip, check that female out, her breasts are easy two standard deviations larger than the norm!” If you are going test everyday situations out, then use everyday language.

technorati: hooters

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 18th, 2005 at 9:44 pm by Insider and is filed under I knew I'd use my Econ major. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.