IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ucn/wpaper/200422.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The economic consequences of being left-handed : some sinister results (version 2.0)

Author

Listed:
  • Kevin Denny
  • Vincent O'Sullivan

Abstract

This paper provides the first estimates of the effects of handedness on hourly earnings using data on a sample of 33 year olds in the United Kingdom. Augmenting a conventional earnings equation with indicators of left handedness shows there is a well determined positive effect on male earnings with non-manual workers enjoying a slightly larger premium once we allow for non random selection into occupation. This is not consistent with the view that left-handers in general are in some sense handicapped either being innately or through experiencing a world geared towards right-handers. It is consistent with the popular notion of left-handers having particular talents such as enhanced creativity. The results for females however reveal the opposite, left-handed females are paid significantly less. This paper forms part of the Policy Evaluation Program at the Institute for the Study of Social Change (ISSC) at UCD.

Suggested Citation

  • Kevin Denny & Vincent O'Sullivan, 2004. "The economic consequences of being left-handed : some sinister results (version 2.0)," Working Papers 200422, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucn:wpaper:200422
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10197/945
    File Function: First version, 2004
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Coren, S., 1989. "Left-handedness and accident-related injury risk," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 79(8), pages 1040-1041.
    2. Murphy, P D & Sloane, Peter J & Blackaby, D H, 1992. "The Effects of Trade Unions on the Distribution of Earnings: A Sample Selectivity Approach," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 54(4), pages 517-542, November.
    3. Carneiro, Pedro & Heckman, James J., 2003. "Human Capital Policy," IZA Discussion Papers 821, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Mikael Lindahl & Alan B. Krueger, 2001. "Education for Growth: Why and for Whom?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1101-1136, December.
    5. Robert Buchele, 1983. "Economic Achievement and the Power of Positive Thinking," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 18(3), pages 441-449.
    6. Melissa Osborne & Herbert Gintis & Samuel Bowles, 2001. "The Determinants of Earnings: A Behavioral Approach," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1137-1176, December.
    7. Dearden, Lorraine, 1999. "The effects of families and ability on men's education and earnings in Britain1," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 551-567, November.
    8. Hungerford, Thomas & Solon, Gary, 1987. "Sheepskin Effects in the Returns to Education," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(1), pages 175-177, February.
    9. Hamermesh, Daniel S & Biddle, Jeff E, 1994. "Beauty and the Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1174-1194, December.
    10. Lee, Lung-Fei, 1978. "Unionism and Wage Rates: A Simultaneous Equations Model with Qualitative and Limited Dependent Variables," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 19(2), pages 415-433, June.
    11. Griliches, Zvi, 1977. "Estimating the Returns to Schooling: Some Econometric Problems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 45(1), pages 1-22, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Frijters, Paul & Johnston, David W. & Shah, Manisha & Shields, Michael A., 2008. "Early Child Development and Maternal Labor Force Participation: Using Handedness as an Instrument," IZA Discussion Papers 3537, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Paul Gregg & Katharina Janke & Carol Propper, 2008. "Handedness and Child Development," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 08/198, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    3. Kevin Denny, 2008. "Handedness and depression, evidence from a large population survey," Working Papers 200815, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    4. Joshua Goodman, 2014. "The Wages of Sinistrality: Handedness, Brain Structure, and Human Capital Accumulation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(4), pages 193-212, Fall.
    5. Kevin Denny, 2006. "Cognitive ability and hemispheric indecision : two surpluses and a deficit," Working Papers 200612, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    6. Kevin Denny & Vincent O’ Sullivan, 2007. "The Economic Consequences of Being Left-Handed: Some Sinister Results," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(2).

    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. Kevin Denny & Vincent O’ Sullivan, 2007. "The Economic Consequences of Being Left-Handed: Some Sinister Results," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(2).
    2. Angel de la Fuente & Antonio Ciccone, 2003. "Human capital in a global and knowledge-based economy," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 562.03, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    3. James Heckman & Flavio Cunha, 2007. "The Technology of Skill Formation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 31-47, May.
    4. Romano, Richard E. & Tampieri, Alessandro, 2016. "Arts vs engineering: Choosing consumption of and investment in education," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 493-510.
    5. Dohmen, Thomas, 2014. "Behavioral labor economics: Advances and future directions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 71-85.
    6. Cunha, Flavio & Heckman, James J. & Lochner, Lance, 2006. "Interpreting the Evidence on Life Cycle Skill Formation," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & F. Welch (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 12, pages 697-812, Elsevier.
    7. Jutta Viinikainen & Katja Kokko & Lea Pulkkinen & Jaakko Pehkonen, 2010. "Personality and Labour Market Income: Evidence from Longitudinal Data," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 24(2), pages 201-220, June.
    8. Kevin Denny & Vincent O'sullivan, 2007. "Can education compensate for low ability? Evidence from British data," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(9), pages 657-660.
    9. Eric A. Hanushek & Ludger Woessmann, 2008. "The Role of Cognitive Skills in Economic Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(3), pages 607-668, September.
    10. Sid Durbin, 2004. "Review of Workplace Skills, Technology Adoption and Firm Productivity: A Review," Treasury Working Paper Series 04/16, New Zealand Treasury.
    11. Melissa Clark & David Jaeger, 2006. "Natives, the foreign-born and high school equivalents: new evidence on the returns to the GED," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 19(4), pages 769-793, October.
    12. Jason Beck, 2022. "Exploring the Link Between Wages and Psychological Capital," Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, , vol. 34(2), pages 250-274, July.
    13. Galindo-Rueda, Fernando & Vignoles, Anna, 2002. "Class Ridden or Meritocratic? An Economic Analysis of Recent Changes in Britain," IZA Discussion Papers 677, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Vogl, Tom S., 2014. "Height, skills, and labor market outcomes in Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 84-96.
    15. Gosta Esping-Andersen, 2008. "Childhood investments and skill formation," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 15(1), pages 19-44, February.
    16. Del Bono, Emilia & Galindo-Rueda, Fernando, 2006. "The long term impacts of compulsory schooling: evidence from a natural experiment in school leaving dates," ISER Working Paper Series 2006-44, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    17. Calero, Carla & Gonzalez Diez, Veronica & Soares, Yuri S.D. & Kluve, Jochen & Corseuil, Carlos Henrique, 2017. "Can arts-based interventions enhance labor market outcomes among youth? Evidence from a randomized trial in Rio de Janeiro," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 131-142.
    18. Muhammad Sabir & Zehra Aftab, 2006. "Province-wise Growth Patterns in Human Capital Accumulation," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 45(4), pages 873-890.
    19. Vella, Francis & Gregory, R. G., 1996. "Selection bias and human capital investment: Estimating the rates of return to education for young males," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 197-219, September.
    20. Pedro Carneiro & James J. Heckman, 2002. "The Evidence on Credit Constraints in Post--secondary Schooling," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(482), pages 705-734, October.

    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:ucn:wpaper:200422. 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: Nicolas Clifton (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/educdie.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.