ARNOLD KLING
August 14, 2011
The Top Political Contributors
August 11, 2011
Gender and the New Commanding Heights
August 11, 2011
Jamie Galbraith Makes an Assumption
August 11, 2011
Macroeconometrics: The Science of Hubris
August 10, 2011
Real and Nominal Bond Yields
BRYAN CAPLAN
August 14, 2011
The Effect of Thumb Sucking on Income
August 12, 2011
The Voice of Cold, Hard Truth to All Would-Be Educators
August 12, 2011
Ability, Morality, and Prosperity: A Paper and a Report
August 11, 2011
The Theory of Time and Frittering
August 10, 2011
Male Variance and the Remnants of the Gender Gap
DAVID HENDERSON
August 9, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken", Part Two
August 8, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken"
August 5, 2011
James Bovard on the Peace Corps
August 4, 2011
Summers Way Off on FDR and 1941
August 3, 2011
The "Amazon" Tax
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While I would suspect that the correlation is positive, controlling for social and analytical skills, that relies on an implicit assumption that a job requiring more physical skills naturally commands a premium. I'm not sure this is valid. Consider the similar case of jobs that require more 'disgusting' work (septic cleaning, for instance). I don't have the impression that these are more remunerative than jobs that require similar skills but are less disgusting. Why is that? Wouldn't you require more money to do a distasteful job? I would.
It may instead be that workers who cannot command high wages for non-skills related reasons (criminal records, poor work habits, etc.) are also unable to obtain jobs that are less distasteful or require fewer physical skills. These may or may not be correlated with fewer social or analytical skills, but I'm not sure we can assume that those two variables would capture enough of the differences to shift the correlation from negative to positive.
I presume it is because those with physical skills didn't develop the other skills, perceiving them unnecessary.
But I'm curious about the high school dynamic. The guys with great physical skills are the athletes. Spoiled, get all the girls. See no need to develop intelligence or social skills because they don't have to do so to be atop the pyramid. Others do to try to compete.
May I add another level of complication to this analysis?
In part the changing patterns of employment reflect the offshoring of manufacturing jobs. The USA is still consuming the fruits of physical work, but that work is being performed in China.
To understand the true change in work patterns you would need to correct for this effect.
I have no idea how.
I put a link in my name to the research Richard Florida is referring to at MPI.
The link is to the working paper as of April 2010. It is without tables so I can't say for sure, but it reads like they did run the regressions you want to see Arnold. Maybe there is an updated version somewhere.
They describe the coefficient on physical skills to be negative but not statistically significant.
Are the physical skills controlled for age? Are we just seeing that young people--- although fit--- don't produce as much?