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Author: Tekin, Erdal
Resulting in 2 citations.
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Wada, Roy Tekin, Erdal |
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Body Composition and Wages NBER Working Paper No. 13595, National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2007. Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W13595 Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Keyword(s): Body Mass Index (BMI); Economics of Discrimination; Heterogeneity; National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES); Obesity; Wage Determination; Wage Models This paper examines the effect of body composition on wages. We develop measures of body composition – body fat (BF) and fat-free mass (FFM) – using data on bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) that are available in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III and estimate wage models for respondents in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. Our results indicate that increased body fat is unambiguously associated with decreased wages for both males and females. This result is in contrast to the mixed and sometimes inconsistent results from the previous research using body mass index (BMI). We also find new evidence indicating that a higher level of fat-free body mass is consistently associated with increased hourly wages. We present further evidence that these results are not the artifacts of unobserved heterogeneity. Our findings are robust to numerous specification checks and to a large number of alternative BIA prediction equations from which the body composition measures are derived. Our work addresses an important limitation of the current literature on the economics of obesity. Previous research relied on body weight or BMI for measuring obesity despite the growing agreement in the medical literature that they represent misleading measures of obesity because of their inability to distinguish between body fat and fat-free body mass. Body composition measures used in this paper represent significant improvements over the previously used measures because they allow for the effects of fat and fat free components of body composition to be separately identified. Our work also contributes to the growing literature on the role of non-cognitive characteristics on wage determination. |
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Bibliography Citation
Wada, Roy and Erdal Tekin. "Body Composition and Wages." NBER Working Paper No. 13595, National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2007. |
| 2. |
Wada, Roy Tekin, Erdal |
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Body Composition and Wages Economics and Human Biology 8,2 (July 2010): 242-254. Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X10000213 Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: Elsevier Keyword(s): Body Mass Index (BMI); Methods/Methodology; National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES); Obesity; Wage Determination We develop measures of body composition - body fat (BF) and fat-free mass (FFM) - using data on bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) that are available in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III and estimate wage models for respondents in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. Previous research use body size or BMI as measures of obesity despite a growing concern that they do not distinguish between body fat and fat-free body mass or adequately control for non-homogeneity inside human body. Therefore, measures presented in this paper represent a useful alternative to BMI-based proxies of obesity. This paper also contributes to the growing literature on the role of non-cognitive factors on wage determination. Our results indicate that BF is associated with decreased wages for both males and females among whites and blacks. We also present evidence suggesting that FFM is associated with increased wages. We show that these results are not the artifacts of unobserved heterogeneity. Finally, our findings are robust to numerous specification checks and to a large number of alternative BIA prediction equations from which the body composition measures are derived. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. |
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Bibliography Citation
Wada, Roy and Erdal Tekin. "Body Composition and Wages." Economics and Human Biology 8,2 (July 2010): 242-254.
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