Health and Wages: Panel Evidence on Men and Women using IV Quantile Regression

Abbi Kedir

No 08/37, Discussion Papers in Economics from Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester

Abstract: Using panel data from a developing country on individuals aged 16 to 59 who reported their monthly wages, we estimated a relationship between health (nutrition) measures (i.e. height and BMI) and wages (which proxies productivity/growth). We controlled for endogeneity of BMI and found heterogeneous returns to different human capital indicators. Our findings indicate that productivity is positively and significantly affected by education, height and BMI. The return to BMI is important both at the lower and upper end of the wage distribution for men while women at the upper end of the distribution suffer a wage penalty due to BMI. Height has been a significant factor affecting men’s productivity but not women. The results in general support the high-nutrition and high- productivity equilibrium story. Returns to schooling showed a declining trend as we move from lower to higher quantiles for both sub-samples. This might suggest that schooling is more beneficial for the less able. In addition, the returns to schooling of women are higher than men. The results have important implications for policy making in the form of nutrition interventions and targeted education on women.

Keywords: height; BMI; schooling; heterogeneity; endogeneity; quantile; IV (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 I12 J24 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-hea, nep-hrm and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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