Anthropometric within-country Inequality and the Estimation of Skill Premia with Anthropometric Indicators

Abstract

Summary We provide a literature review of anthropometric studies of within-country inequality. Then we discuss the relationship between skill premia and inequality indicators based on height variation. Skill premia describe the wage gap between an unskilled and a skilled building worker, while height CVs (coefficient of height variation) display the variance in net nutrition. We find that the two measures are correlated and that CV values are suitable to estimate skill premia. We supplement the existing literature by an additional tool, namely the estimation of skill premia based on the coefficient of height variation.