Leadership Skills and Wages
IZA Discussion Paper No. 482
54 Pages Posted: 27 May 2002
Date Written: April 2002
Abstract
American business seems to be infatuated with its workers' "leadership" skills. Is there such a thing, and is it rewarded in labor markets? Using the Project Talent, NLS72 and High School and Beyond datasets, we show that men who occupied leadership positions in high school earn more as adults, even when cognitive skills are held constant. The pure leadership-wage effect varies from four percent for a broad definition of leadership in 1971 to twenty-four percent for a narrow definition in 1992, and appears to have increased over time. High-school leaders are more likely to occupy managerial occupations as adults, and leadership skills command a higher wage premium within managerial occupations than other jobs. We find evidence that leadership skill has a component that is determined before high school, but also find evidence that it is "teachable".
Keywords: Education, Leadership, Wages, Ability
JEL Classification: I21, J24, J31
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
By Daniel S. Hamermesh and Jeff Biddle
-
The Effect of Adolescent Experience on Labor Market Outcomes: The Case of Height
By Nicola G. Persico, Andrew Postlewaite, ...
-
The Effect of Adolescent Experience on Labor Market Outcomes: The Case of Height
By Nicola G. Persico, Andrew Postlewaite, ...
-
The Effect of Adolescent Experience on Labor Market Outcomes: The Case of Height
By Nicola G. Persico, Andrew Postlewaite, ...
-
The Effect of Adolescent Experience on Labor Market Outcomes: The Case of Height, Third Version
By Nicola G. Persico, Andrew Postlewaite, ...
-
Stature and Status: Height, Ability, and Labor Market Outcomes
By Anne Case and Christina H. Paxson
-
Beauty, Productivity and Discrimination: Lawyers' Looks and Lucre
By Jeff Biddle and Daniel S. Hamermesh
-
The Returns to Increasing Body Weight
By Jere Behrman and Mark R. Rosenzweig
-
By William T. Harbaugh, Kate Krause, ...
-
Beauty in the Classroom: Professors' Pulchritude and Putative Pedagogical Productivity
By Daniel S. Hamermesh and Amy M. Parker