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Height and Leadership

Author

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  • 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 achievement," Working Paper Series 2008:25, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
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    Citations

    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. 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.
    2. 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).
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Bittmann, Felix, 2020. "The relationship between height and leadership: Evidence from across Europe," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).
    7. 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.
    8. Tao, Hung-Lin, 2014. "Height, weight, and entry earnings of female graduates in Taiwan," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 85-98.
    9. Bastani, Spencer & Karlsson, Kristina & Kolsrud, Jonas & Waldenström, Daniel, 2024. "The Capital Advantage: Comparing Returns to Ability in the Labor and Capital Markets," Working Papers in Economics and Statistics 1/2024, Linnaeus University, School of Business and Economics, Department of Economics and Statistics.
    10. Dohmen, Thomas, 2014. "Behavioral labor economics: Advances and future directions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 71-85.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. Frieder Kropfhäußer, 2016. "A fresh look at the labor market height premium in Germany," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 36(3), pages 1376-1383.
    16. Limbach, Peter & Sonnenburg, Florian, 2014. "CEO fitness and firm value," CFR Working Papers 14-12 [rev.], University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    17. Thompson, Kristina & Portrait, France & Schoonmade, Linda, 2023. "The height premium: A systematic review and meta-analysis," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    18. Dechter, Evgenia Kogan, 2015. "Physical appearance and earnings, hair color matters," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 15-26.
    19. 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.
    20. Suyong Song & Stephen S. Baek, 2019. "Shape Matters: Evidence from Machine Learning on Body Shape-Income Relationship," Papers 1906.06747, arXiv.org.
    21. 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.
    22. 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.
    23. 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.
    24. 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.
    25. 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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