A tall, modest-looking man in his 60s, whose face is filled with a gray, whitened beard and oval-rimmed glasses atop a shiny bald head, told about 300 students in Lockett Hall a high dollar will always be paid for beauty so long as there’s an agreement on what is good-looking.Daniel Hamermesh, economics professor at the University of Texas at Austin, addressed students Thursday as part of a lecture series sponsored by the E.J. Ourso School of Business. Hamermesh said he began looking into the correlation between beauty and earnings during the 1970s while looking at other research during which interviewees’ looks were rated. Women’s looks were rated much more extremely than men, with more women getting ratings at the far ends of the beauty spectrum than average ratings, Hamermesh said. But men are rewarded more and penalized more based on their good looks, he said. The difference in earnings for handsome versus homely men is 14 percent, while the difference for women is 9 percent. It becomes interesting when it becomes a policy question, he said.”Should we start having affirmative action for ugly people?” Hamermesh asked.For example, French law dictates people can’t be discriminated against because of their looks, Hamermesh said. But trying to improve one’s looks doesn’t help in wage earnings, Hamermesh said.”If you’re ugly, suck it up,” he said. Rachel Gimenez, psychology freshman, attended the lecture for bonus points in PSYC 2001. She said improving looks should increase a person’s salary if there is a correlation between beauty and earnings. But Jacques Metevier, economics graduate student who attended the lecture, said it’s better to spend money on your education than spending on your looks.Metevier said he found Hamermesh’s argument convincing. Beauty is not correlated with other abilities, Hamermesh said, and he urged ugly students to take advantage of talents and skills they have. Robert Newman, economics department chair, said his department brought Hamermesh in to show people economists don’t just do boring research. In terms of job success, the interview is the first time a potential employer sees the applicant, Sara Crow, assistant director of communications, said Wednesday in an interview with The Daily Reveille. “We always tell students to make their best first impression,” Crow said.Coming from Career Services, this means looking clean, tidy and professional, she said.- – – -Contact Olga Kourilova at [email protected]