Because President Obama is a lawyer and his mother had a commonly male first name (Stanley), he might appreciate this study out of Clemson. The authors calculated the “masculinity” of every first name in South Carolina as the fraction of registered voters with that name who were male. Then, they compared the average masculinity of female voters’ names to the average masculinity of female judges’ names in the state. While the average masculinity of female voters’ names was 0.026, the value for female judges’ names was 0.084. The authors estimate that changing a girl’s name from “Sue” to “Kelly” increased her odds of becoming a judge by 5 percent, but changing her name to “Cameron” increased her odds by a factor of three.
Coffey, B. & McLaughlin, P., “Do Masculine Names Help Female Lawyers Become Judges? Evidence from South Carolina,” American Law and Economics Review (Spring 2009).
Terrorism works, to a point
Does terrorism work? A new analysis by economists in Israel suggests that it does. By comparing the political survey responses of Jewish Israelis in various districts to the recent intensity of terror attacks in those same districts, the economists were able to estimate the effect of terrorism - apart from other factors - on political attitudes. Up to a certain point, attacks made it more likely that Israelis would support territorial concessions, a Palestinian state, and have a favorable opinion of Arabs, while making it less likely that they would identify themselves as right-wing. Nevertheless, they found, the terror attacks had diminishing returns. And too much terrorism in one area was counter-productive, turning the population against the causes the terrorists sought to further.
Gould, E. & Klor, E., “Does Terrorism Work?” The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (June 2009).
Insurance makes you fat
Higher rates of obesity (and its associated ailments) have been blamed for some of the growth in health care costs. Obviously, junk food and sedentary lifestyles are largely to blame. But a new study suggests that health insurance itself may add to the problem. It found that having insurance is associated with increases in one’s body mass index, a standard measure of weight relative to height. The authors of the study aren’t suggesting that people be dropped from coverage, of course, but they do suggest “providing incentives for healthy behaviors, especially among those with public coverage.”
Bhattacharya, J. et al., “Does Health Insurance Make You Fat?” National Bureau of Economic Research (July 2009).
Political donations really do pay off
It’s no secret that special interests have a special relationship with politicians. But what exactly does the special interest get out of it? For corporations at least, the answer is more money for shareholders. Researchers constructed a comprehensive dataset of federal political contributions and financial performance of publicly traded corporations during the last several decades. Corporations that had contributed to more candidates subsequently saw better profit and stock returns, especially when contributing to candidates from the same state as the corporation, or to Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives.
Cooper, M. et al., “Corporate Political Contributions and Stock Returns,” Journal of Finance (forthcoming).
Is there a ‘gay face’?
We’re often told not to judge a book by its cover, but when it comes to judging sexual orientation from someone’s appearance, that’s exactly what we’re good at. Research has found that people can make a pretty good guess about a man’s sexual orientation from seeing his face, even for a split second, or just from seeing his eyes. The latest study finds the same pattern for female sexual orientation. Researchers downloaded photos from dating websites of self-described lesbians and straight women in major cities around the country. Cropped grayscale photos of each woman’s head were then rated as lesbian or straight by college students. Accuracy was significantly better than random guessing. When the photos were cropped just around the eyes (no eyebrows), accuracy was still somewhat statistically significant. When cropped photos of just the face were shown at near-subliminal speed (40 milliseconds), accuracy was also statistically significant.
Rule, N. et al., “Female Sexual Orientation is Perceived Accurately, Rapidly, and Automatically from the Face and its Features,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (forthcoming).
Kevin Lewis is an Ideas columnist. He can be reached at kevin.lewis.ideas@gmail.com. 
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