Erik Lindqvist

The Labor Market Returns to Cognitive and Noncognitive Ability: Evidence from the Swedish Enlistment

We use data from the military enlistment for a large representative sample of Swedish men to assess the importance of cognitive and noncognitive ability for labor market outcomes. The measure of noncognitive ability is based on a personal interview conducted by a psychologist. Unlike survey-based measures of noncognitive ability, this measure is a substantially stronger predictor of labor market outcomes than cognitive ability. In particular, we find strong evidence that men who fare badly in the labor market in the sense of long-term unemployment or low annual earnings lack noncognitive but not cognitive ability. We point to a technological explanation for this result. Noncognitive ability is an important determinant of productivity irrespective of occupation or ability level, though it seems to be of particular importance for workers in a managerial position. In contrast, cognitive ability is valuable only for men in qualified occupations. As a result, noncognitive ability is more important for men at the verge of being priced out of the labor market.

Political polarization and the size of government

In this article, we study the relationship between political polarization and public spending using the dispersion of self-reported political preferences as our measure of polarization. Political polarization is strongly associated with smaller government in democratic countries, but there is no relationship between polarization and the size of government in undemocratic countries. The results are robust to a large set of control variables, including gross domestic product per capita and income inequality.

On the sources of the height-intelligence correlation: new insights from a bivariate ACE model with assortative mating.

A robust positive correlation between height and intelligence, as measured by IQ tests, has been established in the literature. This paper makes several contributions toward establishing the causes of this association. First, we extend the standard bivariate ACE model to account for assortative mating. The more general theoretical framework provides several key insights, including formulas to decompose a cross-trait genetic correlation into components attributable to assortative mating and pleiotropy and to decompose a cross-trait within-family correlation. Second, we use a large dataset of male twins drawn from Swedish conscription records and examine how well genetic and environmental factors explain the association between (i) height and intelligence and (ii) height and military aptitude, a professional psychogologist’s assessment of a conscript’s ability to deal with wartime stress. For both traits, we find suggestive evidence of a shared genetic architecture with height, but we demonstrate that point estimates are very sensitive to assumed degrees of assortative mating. Third, we report a significant within-family correlation between height and intelligence

The Making of a Manager: Evidence from Military Officer Training

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Does parental age difference affect offspring count in humans? Comment on Fieder and Huber

suggesting that pleiotropy might be at play.

Maternal longevity and the sex of offspring in pre-industrial Sweden

This paper studies the relationship between height and leadership. Using data from a representative sample of Swedish men, I document that tall men are significantly more likely to attain managerial positions. An increase in height by 10 centimeters (3.94 inches) is associated with a 2.2 percentage point increase in the probability of holding a managerial position. Selection into managerial positions explains about 15 percent of the unconditional height wage premium. However, at least half of the height-leadership correlation is due to a positive correlation between height and cognitive and noncognitive ability.

Planned treatment and outcomes in residential youth care: Evidence from Sweden

We show that officer training during the Swedish military service has a strong positive effect on the probability of attaining a managerial position later in life. The most intense type of officer training increases the probability of becoming a civilian manager by about 5 percentage points, or 75%. Officer training also increases educational attainment post–military service. We argue that the effect on civilian leadership could be due to the acquisition of leadership-specific skills during the military service, and we present suggestive evidence related to alternative mechanisms, such as signaling, networks, and training unrelated to leadership.

Generosity and Political Preferences

Recent years have witnessed the emergence of a literature examining the effects of giving birth to sons on postmenopausal longevity in pre-industrial mothers. The original paper in this lineage used a sample (n=375) of Sami mothers from northern Finland and found that, relative to daughters, giving birth to sons substantially reduced maternal longevity. We examine this hypothesis using a similar and a much larger sample (n=930) of pre-industrial Sami women from northern Sweden, who in terms of their demographic, sociocultural and biological conditions, closely resemble the original study population. In contrast to the previously reported results for the Sami, we find no evidence of a negative effect of sons on maternal longevity. Thus, we provide the most compelling evidence to date that the leading result in the literature must be approached with scepticism.