Meanings
- neologismuncountableThe study of the economics related to beauty.First known use 2011
The purpose of this paper is to research CEO pulchronomics by examining whether a beauty premium exists in CEO compensation and whether this beauty premium is justified by differences in CEO performance.
2021 August 13, Jung Yeun (June) Kim, Linna Shi, Nan Zhou, “CEO pulchronomics and appearance discrimination”, in Asian Review of Accounting, volume 29, number 3, →DOI, pages 443-4732 more examples
Lookism is a growing area of research interest in economics, termed “pulchronomics”: focus being given to the need to disentangle the confounding variable of levels of productivity from pay penalty and pay premium measures.
2016 April 21, Jacqueline Granleese, “Lookism”, in The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies, →DOIThe laws of ‘pulchronomics’ also apply to women, Attractive workers may attract more customers, so perhaps they should be paid more. Hamermesh argues that those who are unattractive should have legal protection.
2019, David A. Buchanan, Andrzej Huczynski, Organizational Behaviour, Pearson Education Australia, page 505
Origin
Blend of Latin pulchrum (“beautiful”) + economics. Coined by economist Daniel S. Hamermesh in 2011.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
pulchronomics. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pulchronomics
“pulchronomics.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pulchronomics. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “pulchronomics,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pulchronomics.
Source: pulchronomics on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.