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Height and Leadership

Author

Listed:
  • Erik Lindqvist

    (Stockholm School of Economics and Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN))

Abstract

This paper studies the relationship between height and leadership. Using data from a representative sample of Swedish men, I document that tall men are significantly more likely to attain managerial positions. An increase in height by 10 centimeters (3.94 inches) is associated with a 2.2 percentage point increase in the probability of holding a managerial position. Selection into managerial positions explains about 15% of the unconditional height-wage premium. However, about half of the height-leadership correlation is due to a positive correlation between height and cognitive and noncognitive ability. © 2012 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Suggested Citation

  • Erik Lindqvist, 2012. "Height and Leadership," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(4), pages 1191-1196, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:94:y:2012:i:4:p:1191-1196
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Grönqvist, Erik & Vlachos, Jonas, 2008. "One Size Fits All? The Effects of Teacher Cognitive and Non-cognitive Abilities on Student," Working Paper Series 779, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    2. Grönqvist, Erik & Vlachos, Jonas, 2008. "One size fits all? The effects of teacher cognitive and non-cognitive abilities on student achievement," Working Paper Series 2008:25, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    3. Petri Böckerman & Edvard Johansson & Urpo Kiiskinen & Markku Heilövaara, 2010. "Does Physical Capacity Explain the Height Premium?," Working Papers 1074, Tampere University, Faculty of Management and Business, Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Are Tell Men Leaders Because of Height Bias or Intelligence?
      by Ariel Goldring in Free Market Mojo on 2010-06-16 18:39:51

    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Price, Gregory N., 2013. "The allometry of metabolism and stature: Worker fatigue and height in the Tanzanian labor market," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 515-521.
    2. Cornelius A. Rietveld & Jolanda Hessels & Peter van der Zwan, 2014. "The Stature of the Self-employed and its Premium," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 14-109/VII, Tinbergen Institute.
    3. Böckerman, Petri & Vainiomäki, Jari, 2013. "Stature and life-time labor market outcomes: Accounting for unobserved differences," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 86-96.
    4. Tao, Hung-Lin, 2014. "Height, weight, and entry earnings of female graduates in Taiwan," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 85-98.
    5. Olivier Bargain & Jinan Zeidan, 2017. "Stature, Skills and Adult Life Outcomes: Evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(6), pages 873-890, June.
    6. Maria Laura Alzua & Juan Camilo Cardenas & Habiba Djebbari, 2014. "Community mobilization around social dilemmas: evidence from lab experiments in rural Mali," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0160, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    7. Dohmen, Thomas, 2014. "Behavioral labor economics: Advances and future directions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 71-85.
    8. Frieder Kropfhäußer, 2016. "A fresh look at the labor market height premium in Germany," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 36(3), pages 1376-1383.
    9. Limbach, Peter & Sonnenburg, Florian, 2014. "CEO fitness and firm value," CFR Working Papers 14-12 [rev.], University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    10. Thompson, Kristina & Portrait, France & Schoonmade, Linda, 2023. "The height premium: A systematic review and meta-analysis," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    11. Adams, Renée & Keloharju, Matti & Knüpfer, Samuli, 2018. "Are CEOs born leaders? Lessons from traits of a million individuals," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(2), pages 392-408.
    12. Dechter, Evgenia Kogan, 2015. "Physical appearance and earnings, hair color matters," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 15-26.
    13. Suyong Song & Stephen S. Baek, 2019. "Shape Matters: Evidence from Machine Learning on Body Shape-Income Relationship," Papers 1906.06747, arXiv.org.
    14. Matti Keloharju & Samuli Knüpfer & Joacim Tåg, 2022. "What prevents women from reaching the top?," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 51(3), pages 711-738, September.
    15. Mark E. McGovern & Aditi Krishna & Victor M. Aguayo & S.V. Subramanian, 2017. "A Review of the Evidence Linking Child Stunting to Economic Outcomes," CHaRMS Working Papers 17-03, Centre for HeAlth Research at the Management School (CHaRMS).
    16. Rietveld, Cornelius A. & Hessels, Jolanda & van der Zwan, Peter, 2015. "The stature of the self-employed and its relation with earnings and satisfaction," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 59-74.
    17. Bittmann, Felix, 2020. "The relationship between height and leadership: Evidence from across Europe," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).
    18. Bastani, Spencer & Karlsson, Kristina & Waldenström, Daniel, 2023. "The Different Returns to Cognitive Ability in the Labor and Capital Markets," Working Paper Series 1459, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    19. Erik Grönqvist & Erik Lindqvist, 2016. "The Making of a Manager: Evidence from Military Officer Training," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(4), pages 869-898.
    20. Böckerman, Petri & Johansson, Edvard & Kiiskinen, Urpo & Heliövaara, Markku, 2010. "The relationship between physical work and the height premium: Finnish evidence," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 414-420, December.
    21. Nazim Habibov & Alena Auchynnikava & Rong Luo, 2021. "Does the height to entrepreneurship nexus have two stages? New evidence from 27 nations," Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research, Springer;UNESCO Chair in Entrepreneurship, vol. 11(1), pages 141-152, December.
    22. Raufhon Salahodjaev & Nargiza Ibragimova, 2020. "Height and Life Satisfaction: Evidence from Russia," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 15(1), pages 219-237, March.
    23. Bastani, Spencer & Karlsson, Kristina & Waldenström, Daniel, 2023. "The different returns to cognitive ability in the labor and capital markets," Working Paper Series 2023:8, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    24. Luisa Gagliardi & Myriam Mariani, 2022. "Trained to lead: Evidence from industrial research," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(4), pages 847-871, April.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    height; beauty; leadership; managerial positions; discrimination;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J70 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - General

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