Previous studies report that adult height has significant associations with wages even controlling for schooling. But schooling and height are imperfect measures of adult cognitive skills (“brains”) and strength (“brawn”); further they are not exogenous. Analysis of rich Guatemalan longitudinal data over 35 years finds that proximate determinants - adult reading comprehension skills and fat-free body mass - have significantly positive associations with wages, but only brains, and not brawn, is significant when both human capital measures are treated as endogenous. Even in a poor developing economy in which strength plausibly has rewards, labor market returns are increased by brains, not brawn.
CITATION STYLE
Behrman, J. R., Hoddinott, J., Maluccio, J. A., & Martorell, R. (2011). Brains versus Brawn: Labor Market Returns to Intellectual and Health Human Capital in a Poor Developing Country. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1471316
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