The Tall and the Short of the Returns to Height

We revisit the US evidence of the association of height with socioeconomic status. We document non linear height profiles that are different for males and females. For males the profile is a spline function with a single node at mean height. Below mean height there is a sharply positive slope with height, while the function is roughly horizontal above the mean. For females the spline has two nodes. There is positive slope below mean height and in the top 10 percent of heights, and the profile is roughly horizontal between the mean and the 90th percentile. Remarkably, these stylized profiles describe the association of height with socioeconomic outcomes ranging from teenage cognitive scores to adult poverty, suggesting a common origin. We investigate some of the implications of these findings for analyses of the contributions of cognitive and non cognitive skills to the height profile in wages.