IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/han/dpaper/dp-396.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Bioeconomic Foundation for the Nutrition-based Efficiency Wage Model

Author

Listed:
  • Dalgaard, Carl-Johan
  • Strulik, Holger

Abstract

Drawing on recent research on allometric scaling and energy consumption, the present paper develops a nutrition-based efficiency wage model from first principles. The biologically micro-founded model allows us to address empirical criticism of the original nutrition-based efficiency wage model. By extending the model with respect to heterogeneity in worker body size and a physiologically founded impact of body size on productivity, we demonstrate that the nutrition-based efficiency wage model is compatible with the empirical regularity that taller workers simultaneously earn higher wages and are less likely to be unemployed in less developed economies. The theory also provides an answer to the question of why such regularity may disappear in the process of development.

Suggested Citation

  • Dalgaard, Carl-Johan & Strulik, Holger, 2008. "A Bioeconomic Foundation for the Nutrition-based Efficiency Wage Model," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-396, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    • Handle: RePEc:han:dpaper:dp-396
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://diskussionspapiere.wiwi.uni-hannover.de/pdf_bib/dp-396.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dalgaard, Carl-Johan & Strulik, Holger, 2007. "A Bioeconomic Foundation of the Malthusian Equilibrium: Body Size and Population Size in the Long-Run," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-373, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    2. Galor, Oded & Weil, David N, 1996. "The Gender Gap, Fertility, and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 374-387, June.
    3. Fogel, Robert W, 1994. "Economic Growth, Population Theory, and Physiology: The Bearing of Long-Term Processes on the Making of Economic Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 369-395, June.
    4. Dasgupta, Partha & Ray, Debraj, 1986. "Inequality as a Determinant of Malnutrition and Unemployment: Theory," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 96(384), pages 1011-1034, December.
    5. Swamy, Anand V., 1997. "A simple test of the nutrition-based efficiency wage model," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 85-98, June.
    6. Deolalikar, Anil B, 1988. "Nutrition and Labor Productivity in Agriculture: Estimates for Rural South India," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 70(3), pages 406-413, August.
    7. T. Paul Schultz, 2002. "Wage Gains Associated with Height as a Form of Health Human Capital," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 349-353, May.
    8. Klaas R. Westerterp, 2001. "Pattern and intensity of physical activity," Nature, Nature, vol. 410(6828), pages 539-539, March.
    9. Dasgupta, Partha, 1997. "Nutritional status, the capacity for work, and poverty traps," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 5-37, March.
    10. Charles-A. Darveau & Raul K. Suarez & Russel D. Andrews & Peter W. Hochachka, 2002. "Allometric cascade as a unifying principle of body mass effects on metabolism," Nature, Nature, vol. 417(6885), pages 166-170, May.
    11. Bose, Gautam, 1997. "Nutritional efficiency wages: a policy framework," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 469-478, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. The advantage of being tall
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2008-11-10 16:11:00

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Carl-Johan Dalgaard & Holger Strulik, 2011. "A physiological foundation for the nutrition-based efficiency wage model," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 63(2), pages 232-253, April.
    2. Kaushal, Kaushalendra Kumar, 2014. "Pathway from nutrition intake to wage among elementary workers in India," MPRA Paper 56652, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Raghbendra Jha & Katsushi S. Imai & Raghav Gaiha, 2014. "Poverty nutrition traps," Chapters, in: Raghbendra Jha & Raghav Gaiha & Anil B. Deolalikar (ed.), Handbook on Food, chapter 10, pages 246-259, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Dillon, Andrew & Friedman, Jed & Serneels, Pieter, 2014. "Health Information, Treatment, and Worker Productivity: Experimental Evidence from Malaria Testing and Treatment among Nigerian Sugarcane Cutters," IZA Discussion Papers 8074, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Angus Deaton, 2003. "Health, Inequality, and Economic Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(1), pages 113-158, March.
    6. Carl-Johan Dalgaard & Holger Strulik, 2006. "Subsistence – A Bio-economic Foundation of the Malthusian Equilibrium," Discussion Papers 06-17, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    7. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/1ej8deo44v9t38bpf73n3rflp8 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Owen O'Donnell & Eddy Van Doorslaer & Tom Van Ourti, 2013. "Health and Inequality," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 13-170/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    9. Jha, Raghbendra & Gaiha, Raghav & Sharma, Anurag, 2009. "Calorie and Micronutrient Deprivation and Poverty Nutrition Traps in Rural India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 982-991, May.
    10. Clément Bellet, 2017. "Essays on inequality, social preferences and consumer behavior [Inégalités, préférences sociales et comportement du consommateur]," SciencePo Working papers Main tel-03455045, HAL.
    11. Sumiter Broca, 2002. "Food Insecurity, Poverty and Agriculture: A Concept Paper," Working Papers 02-15, Agricultural and Development Economics Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO - ESA).
    12. Clément Bellet, 2017. "Essays on inequality, social preferences and consumer behavior [Inégalités, préférences sociales et comportement du consommateur]," SciencePo Working papers tel-03455045, HAL.
    13. Schultz, T. Paul, 2010. "Population and Health Policies," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4785-4881, Elsevier.
    14. Jha, Raghbendra & Gaiha, Raghav & Pandey, Manoj K., 2013. "Body Mass Index, participation, duration of work and earnings under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme: Evidence from Rajasthan," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 14-30.
    15. Schultz, T. Paul, 2005. "Productive Benefits of Health: Evidence from Low-Income Countries," Center Discussion Papers 28532, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    16. Weil, David N., 2014. "Health and Economic Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 3, pages 623-682, Elsevier.
    17. Dasgupta, Partha, 1997. "Nutritional status, the capacity for work, and poverty traps," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 5-37, March.
    18. Schultz, T. Paul, 2003. "Human Capital, Schooling and Health Returns," Center Discussion Papers 28475, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    19. Liu, Gordon G. & Dow, William H. & Fu, Alex Z. & Akin, John & Lance, Peter, 2008. "Income productivity in China: On the role of health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 27-44, January.
    20. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/4vljiub8888igqug7jdg3a9fck is not listed on IDEAS
    21. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/vbu6kd1s68o6r34k5bcm3iopv is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Clément Bellet & Eve Sihra, 2016. "Less Food for More Status: Caste Inequality and Conspicuous Consumption in India," Sciences Po publications 56, Sciences Po.
    23. Rasmus Heltberg, 2009. "Malnutrition, poverty, and economic growth," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(S1), pages 77-88, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Efficiency Wages; Nutrition; Metabolism; Allometric Scaling; Body Size;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Economic Logic blog

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:han:dpaper:dp-396. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Heidrich, Christian (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fwhande.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.