Title: Height as a proxy for cognitive and non-cognitive ability
Description: "Taller workers receive a substantial wage premium.  Studies extending back to the middle of the last century attribute the premium to non-cognitive abilities, which are associated with stature and rewarded in the labor market.  More recent research argues that cognitive abilities explain the stature-wage relationship.  This paper reconciles the competing views by recognizing that net nutrition, a major determinant of adult height, is integral to our cognitive and non-cognitive development.  Using data from Britain's National Childhood Development Study (NCDS), we show that taller children have higher average cognitive and non-cognitive test scores, and that each aptitude accounts for a substantial and roughly equal portion of the stature premium.  Together these abilities explain why taller people have higher wages"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.