The Wage Effects of Social Norms - Evidence of Deviations from Peers' Body Mass in Europe

Elmar A. Janssen () and René Fahr ()
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Elmar A. Janssen: University of Paderborn

No 4, Working Papers Dissertations from Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics

Abstract: We investigate wage effects of deviations from peer group body mass index (BMI) to evaluate the influence of social norms on wages. Our approach allows to show the existence of the influence of the social norm and to disentangle it from any (anticipated) productivity effects associated with deviations from a clinically recommended BMI in certain sections of the weight distribution. Estimates of between-effects models for 9 European countries for the years 1998 to 2001 suggest that the influence of the social norm varies considerably between countries, and wage penalties are rather found for upward deviations from the norm and for men.

Keywords: social norms; discrimination; body mass index; cross-country evidence; wage effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 J30 J70 M51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38
Date: 2014-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-eur, nep-lab and nep-soc
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http://groups.uni-paderborn.de/wp-wiwi/RePEc/pdf/dispap/DP04.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Wage Effects of Social Norms: Evidence of Deviations from Peers’ Body-Mass in Europe (2006)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pdn:dispap:04

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