Height and Cognition at Work Labor market performance in a low income setting

Evidence indicates that taller workers earn more, particularly in lower income settings. It is possible that stature is a marker of strength which is rewarded in the labor market, or that height is a proxy for other dimensions of health and human capital including cognition, early-life investments, and other family background characteristics. As such, height may be an informative signal of worker quality to an employer. This paper evaluates the relative importance of each of these potential mechanisms in a unified framework that treats human capital as multidimensional. We draw on twelve waves of a unique longitudinal survey collected in Central Java, Indonesia that includes measured height, multiple markers of cognition, physical health biomarkers, and extremely rich information on labor market outcomes including sectoral choice, occupations, hours, tenure, self-employed profits, and wages. We document a robust relationship between height and earnings after controlling cognition, other dimensions of health, family background, education, and occupational choice that exists for both formal wage work and informal selfemployment. The results illustrate that the height premium is not explained by the rich array of observed indicators of human capital and suggest height is appropriately treated as one dimension of a multi-dimensional array of human capital.