Do.Re.Mee Seminar
“Beauty and the Beast: Not a happy ending. Physical Unattractiveness and Sexual Violence Perpetration”
by Silvia Palmaccio - Bocconi
and
“Academic Majors and Cooperation: Quasi-experimental Evidence from Sweden”
by Ludovico Genovese - Columbia University
PAPER 1 - “Beauty and the Beast: Not a happy ending. Physical Unattractiveness and Sexual Violence Perpetration”
Speaker
Silvia Palmaccio (Bocconi University)
Abstract
Little is known about whether an individual’s level of attractiveness plays a role in the likelihood of perpetrating sexual violence. Using U.S. data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), we examine the relationship between attractiveness and sexual violence perpetration against one’s partner. To operationalize beauty, we use physical attractiveness scores assigned by interviewers to survey respondents aged 12-17. Our results show that within the sample of men, a 1-point increase in beauty rating (on a scale of 1-5) is associated with a 13% reduction in the likelihood of ever having perpetrated sexual violence against a partner in early to mid-adulthood. This association is partially mediated by personality traits, self-esteem, and social isolation. Finally, we also find that very unattractive men who received high levels of parental investment – proxied by birth order – have a predicted probability of perpetrating sexual violence that is not statistically different from zero, providing suggestive evidence that parental investment may play a protective role in preventing the development of violent behaviors within the sexual sphere.
Bio
Silvia Palmaccio is a Postdoc Fellow at Dondena, Bocconi University, and an affiliated researcher at KU Leuven and the University of Turin. She obtained her Ph.D. in Economics at KU Leuven in 2023, after which she was a Postdoc Fellow at the University of Turin, Department of Economics and Statistics. In October 2024, she joined the Dondena Center to work on the ERC FRAILIFE project with Prof. Nicoletta Balbo. Her research interests lie at the intersection of family and education economics, and she is primarily interested in understanding how school and family environments contribute to shaping children's outcomes.
PAPER 2 - “Academic Majors and Cooperation: Quasi-experimental Evidence from Sweden”
Speaker
Ludovico Genovese (Columbia University)
Abstract
This study investigates whether known cooperative behavior differentials across academic majors are driven by selection or the influence of specific educational experiences. Drawing on a unique collection of Swedish micro-level register data from 1993 to 2018 and leveraging Sweden’s centralized university admission system, I implement a fuzzy regression discontinuity design using blood donation to measure cooperative behavior. Preliminary findings reveal considerable variation in the proportion of students who donate blood across academic majors and provide evidence of self-selection based on students’ predisposition for cooperation. Moreover, I find evidence that academic majors affect students’ probability of becoming blood donors during college. However, the magnitude and sign of these effects vary depending on students’ next-best alternative. Finally, a mediation analysis suggests that the documented effects are partially driven by peer effects.
Bio
Ludovico Genovese is a PhD candidate and Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Columbia University. He is primarily interested in the sociology of cooperation and prosocial behavior, spatial inequality, race and migration, and the role of educational institutions in social stratification. His methodological interests include statistical methods, causal inference, and computational methods. Currently, his research explores the social determinants of blood donation by analyzing Swedish register data in collaboration with the Institute for Analytical Sociology (IAS) at Linköping University and the Karolinska Institutet. Before joining Columbia, Ludovico worked with Francesco Billari at the Dondena Centre for Research on Social Dynamics and Public Policy. He holds an M.A. in Statistics from Columbia University and graduated with Honors from Bocconi University with an M.Sc. in Economic and Social Sciences.