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Height and Earnings: The Role of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skills

På svenska

Author

Summary, in English

We use large-scale register data on 450,000 Swedish males who underwent mandatory military enlistment at age 18, and a subsample of 150,000 siblings, to examine why tall people earn more. We show the importance of both cognitive and noncognitive skills, as well as family background and muscular strength for the height-earnings relationship. In addition, we show that a substantial height premium remains after these factors have been accounted for, which originates from very short people having low earnings. This is mostly explained by the sorting of short people into low-paid occupations, which may indicate discrimination by stature.

Publishing year

2014

Language

English

Pages

141-166

Publication/Series

Journal of Human Resources

Volume

49

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

University of Wisconsin Press

Topic

  • Economic History

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0022-166X