Volume 26, Number 2 (Spring) 1991
Siow, Aloysius. 1991. "Are First Impressions Important in Academia?" Journal of Human Resources 26(2):236-255.
This paper demonstrates that the popular belief that first impressions are important in determining career success is theoretically sound. The model is then tested with salary data on mathematicians and economists. In general, the point estimates show that the long run increase in salary from an additional article or citation declines with the age at which it is received. The large standard errors, however, suggest that first impressions are not as important as the point estimates imply.
The author is an associate professor of economics at the University of Toronto. This is a revised and shorter version of Siow (1988). He thanks David Bloom, Arthur Diamond, Douglas Holtz-Eakins, Brendan O'Flaherty, the referees, and seminar participants at the National Bureau of Economic Research Labor Studies Summer Institute, New York University, for helpful discussions. Arthur Diamond of University of Nebraska at Omaha and Dan Hammermesh of Michigan State University graciously supplied the data for the study. The data may be obtained from them. The author also thanks August Baker who did most of the computations in this paper, as well as Ajay Mahal and Pun Wing Chung who assisted in the computations. He gratefully acknowledges financial support from SSHRC of Canada.
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