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Height and Leadership

Erik Lindqvist1,2

1 Research Institute of Industrial Economics · 2 Stockholm School of Economics

The Review of Economics and Statistics 2012

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.

DOI
10.1162/rest_a_00239
Volume
94 (4)
Pages
1191-1196
Language
en
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