Saturday, August 11, 2007

Height and Income

This article gets almost everything wrong. It says that the causality runs in the direction height -> income. In fact, kids that have access to better nutrition and health receive a better education as well and end up being taller and more successful (on average). Height is just a confounding variable and does not cause financial or emotional success, as the article suggests. (OK, I do admit that there is labour market discrimination against shorter people, but I guess that these effects are not really important in developed economies.)

PS: Are you interested in Anthropometrics? So read anything from Prof Komlos, Prof Steckel, and Prof Fogel.

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