
Business Economics and Public Policy Papers
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of this Version
2-2015
Publication Source
ILR Review
Volume
68
Issue
3
Start Page
529
Last Page
557
DOI
10.1177/0019793915572125
Abstract
Building on the economic research that demonstrates a positive relationship between height and worker ability, the author compares wage returns to height for immigrants and for natives to explore possible explanations for the positive wage–height gradient. Using multiple data sets, the article presents a robust empirical finding that the wage gains associated with height are almost twice as large for immigrants as for native-born individuals. This wage relationship occurs because the productivity gap between tall and short immigrants is greater than the productivity gap between tall and short native-born workers. The author next tests for the possibility that in the relative absence of other sources of information about immigrants, employers place more importance on height for immigrants than for native-born individuals. The evidence does not support the hypothesis of statistical discrimination based on height.
Keywords
height, productivity, immigration, statistical discrimination
Recommended Citation
Wang, S. (2015). Statistical Discrimination, Productivity, and the Height of Immigrants. ILR Review, 68 (3), 529-557. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0019793915572125
Date Posted: 27 November 2017
This document has been peer reviewed.