BEATRICE D'HOMBRES,,GIORGIO BRUNELLO
IZA Discussion Paper No. 1704
Abstract:
We use data from the European Community Household Panel to investigate the impact of obesity on wages in 9 European countries, ranging from Ireland to Spain. We find that the common impact of obesity on wages is negative and statistically significant, independently of gender. Given the nature of European labor markets, however, we believe that a common impact is overly restrictive. When we allow this impact to vary across countries, we find a negative relationship between the BMI and wages in the countries of the European "olive belt" and a positive relationship in the countries of the "beer belt". We speculate that such difference could be driven by the interaction between the weather, BMI and individual (unobserved) productivity.
2 comments:
The reasoning here is so odd. Do people in cold climates benefit from the extra body fat, making them more productive? What about central heating?
central heating is a relatively recent innovation and is only available indoors...but yes it could be picking up something else like diet.still the interaction of BMI with temperature is statistically significant so thats about all they can do.
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