Cognitive Ability, Wages, and Meritocracy / John Cawley, Karen Conneely, James Heckman, Edward Vytlacil.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cawley, John.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Conneely, Karen.

Heckman, James.

Vytlacil, Edward.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w5645.

NBER working paper series no. w5645

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1996.

Summary:

This paper presents new evidence from the NLSY on the importance of meritocracy in American society. In it, we find that general intelligence, or g -- a measure of cognitive ability--is dominant in explaining test score variance. The weights assigned to tests by g are similar for all major demographic groups. These results support Spearman's theory of g. We also find that g and other measures of ability are not rewarded equally across race and gender, evidence against the view that the labor market is organized on meritocratic principles. Additional factors beyond g are required to explain wages and occupational choice. However, both blue collar and white collar wages are poorly predicted by g or even multiple measures of ability. Observed cognitive ability is only a minor predictor of social performance. White collar wages are more g loaded than blue collar wages. Many noncognitive factors determine blue collar wages.

Notes:

Print version record

July 1996.