Pay for Performance or for Beauty?

It is common knowledge that attractive people get hired more often and paid more. Whether you like it or not it happens all over the globe. Beauty premiums exist in Holland, China and the US amount several other countries. So if we know this why do companies keep doing it. A recent study at Penn Institute for Economic Research found that correlations between height and income were most attributed to confidence. Surprisingly, they found adult income differences between tall men and women if they were not tall or attractive as children. So, the beauty premium only existed for individuals who were tall and attractive as children and as adults. The Journal of Applied Psychology pegs the premium at an extra $789 annually per inch of height. However, there was no actual work performance differences found across any of the studies. The researcher concluded that the beauty effect is similar to the placebo effect, where some real value actually does derive from nothing.