Five foot two, eyes of blue, oh, what those five feet could do… 

---Joseph Young, Samuel Lewis, Ray Henderson

….pay less in taxes, according to two Harvard economists.

In a new paper, N. Gregory Mankiw and Matthew Weinzierl, while not expressly advocating a new tax system, argue forcefully for different tax rates based on height.

Weinzierl (he’s 6’1”) and Mankiw (6’2”) acknowledge their newly published paper might be seen as “quirky” -- but Weinzierl noted it was written for academics to examine the various ways to think about a tax system, one of the goals of which is to “maximize the level of happiness through a redistribution of income.”
“What we’re asking people to do,” Weinzierl said in an interview, “is to think about tax policies. Does government have the right to ask those who have the ability to earn more to pay more?”

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Essentially what Mankiw and Weinzierl -- who were both officials during George W. Bush's Administration -- suggest is that tax tables be determined by an individual’s earning ability as much as by actual earnings. They cite prior studies showing a correlation between height and income, noting “each inch of height adds about two percent to a young man’s income in the United States, on average.” Mankiw and Weinzierl chose to limit their study to adult white males “for simplicity” and in doing so avoided other realities (i.e. that women earn less than men and non-whites earn less than whites).

They also cited two studies to explain the difference in earnings.

One study attributes the “height premium” to “the effect of adolescent height on individuals’ development of characteristics later rewarded by the labor market, such as self-esteem.” According to the other study, adult height and cognitive ability (the capacity to perceive, reason, or use intuition) “are affected by pre-natal, in utero, and early childhood nutrition and care, and that the resulting positive correlation between the two explains the height premium among adults.”

According to Weinzierl, taller people already pay higher taxes because they earn more than their shorter friends.

“The idea,” he said, “is that the main framework most economists use is taxes should be based on the ability to pay, but you can’t see who has the ability to pay more.” A proxy would be “to look for the ability to earn” and that’s where height comes in, a physical trait which you can’t change which correlates with earnings.

“If you tax height,” he said, “you can take from those who are more able to pay and give it (through lower taxes or through spending programs) to those who are less able to pay.”

The paper discusses creating a policy which applies principles set forth by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto.“Pareto efficiency” holds that “it is impossible to increase the welfare of one person without decreasing the welfare of another.” That would argue for a redistribution of income along, perhaps, non-traditional lines.

“The job of academics,” Weinzierl said, “is to raise questions that may not be comfortable."

Mark Lieberman is the senior economist for the Fox Business Network. Prior to joining FOX, he served as first vice president at Washington Mutual, where he was manager of economic analysis and research. Before that, he served as senior vice president at Dime Savings Bank of New York (which was later acquired by Washington Mutual), where he specialized in credit and risk management. He has a degree in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.