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Discussion Papers

Male Organ and Economic Growth: Does Size Matter?

Tatu Westling University of Helsinki and HECER

Discussion Paper No. 335 July 2011 ISSN 1795-0562

HECER Helsinki Center of Economic Research, P.O. Box 17 (Arkadiankatu 7), FI-00014 University of Helsinki, FINLAND, Tel +358-9-191-28780, Fax +358-9-191-28781, E-mail info-hecer@helsinki.fi, Internet www.hecer.fi

HECER Discussion Paper No. 335

Male Organ and Economic Growth: Does Size Matter?*

Abstract
This study explores the link between economic growth and penile length between 1960 and 1985. It estimates an augmented Solow model utilizing the Mankiw-Romer-Weil 121 country dataset. The size of male organ is found to have an inverse U-shaped relationship with the level of GDP in 1985. Economic development between 1960 and 1985 is negatively associated with the size of male organ. With considerable reservations it is also found to be a more important determinant of GDP growth than country's political regime type. Two interpretations for the patterns between male organ and economic growth are discussed briefly: the link between penile length, testosterone and risk-taking, and selfesteem production. Despite the robust statistical links, until more rigorous treatments on the subject the proposed male organ hypothesis should be taken with reservations. JEL Classification: O10, O47 Keywords: economic growth, development, penile length, Solow model.

Tatu Westling Department of Political and Economic Studies University of Helsinki P.O. Box 17 (Arkadiankatu 7) FI-00014 University of Helsinki FINLAND

e-mail: tatu.westling@helsinki.fi

* I thank Gero Dolfus, Anssi Kohonen, Klaus Kultti, Otto Kssi and Hannu Vartiainen for their insightful comments. Aleksi Karhula deserves special credits for introducing the penile data. Following the publication of the first draft, numerous helpful commentators suggested potential explanations: health, nutrition, sexual confidence, testosterone and toxins, to name the very popular ones. This paper is an updated version of the generously infantile-punned draft that gained some visibility [175000 downloads in the first three weeks of availability is a testament to the importance of rhetorics]. The original draft can be obtained directly from the author.

Introduction

Economic growth has sparked intellectual endeavours for decades. The convergence hypothesis put forward in Solow (1956), in particular, has received considerable attention. It posits an inverse relationship between the level and growth of GDP. As poor countries are scarce in capital but abundant in labor, marginal products of investments are high. Injections of capital result in higher growth rates in developing countries and convergence should ensue. Literature has established limited empirical support for the convergence hypothesis (Mankiw et al., 1992; Barro, 1991). The inverse relationship is robust especially after human capital has been controlled for. Regarding GDP growth in general, Barro found evidence that government consumption and political instability inhibit economic development. Focusing on the role of political institutions Helliwell (1994) concluded that democracy does not seem to contribute to economic growth but is associated with higher levels of GDP. In another strand of literature Jones & Schneider (2006) show that IQ can explain a substantial part of the cross-country dierentials in GDPs. However, as the authors point out, IQ is likely to be inuenced by education, health and literacy, making it highly endogenous. The studies cited above are well established and generally achieve high predictive power. Yet as they concentrate on economic, social and political factors, these and many related treatments largely abstain from biological and/or sexual considerations. The absence of the last perspective from the growth literature is somewhat surprising, given the very crucial role sex plays in many facets of life. If the endless strive for sexual activities even without any reproductive intentions does not show up in economic outcomes and indeed humanitys long-term development, then what does? The objective of this study is to initiate this discourse, and to introduce to the growth literature a perspective quite novel. The question is, namely, whether and how strongly the average sizes of male organs are associated with GDPs between 1960 and 1985? It is argued here that the penile length in population has a strong statistical association with economic development during the period. The existence and channel of causality remains obscure at this point but the correlations are robust. To facilitate comparison with earlier research, this study utilizes a widelyused cross-country dataset originally published in Summers & Heston (1988) and further augmented in Mankiw et al. (1992) [henceforth MRW]. In total the dataset contains 121 countries of which a sub-sample of 76 observations is utilized. Results in MRW form the baseline against which the ndings in this paper are contrasted. However, no attempt to augment the Solow model beyond MRW has been made. In order to control for political conditions, Polity IV data is utilized. This well-known score is used to assess whether the male organ hypothesis is robust to countries political regime type on autocracy democracy spectrum. The contribution of this paper is to show that the level and growth of the per capita GDP between 1960 and 1985 is not invariant to the average size of male organ in population. Indeed the male organ hypothesis put forward here suggests that penile lengths could carry economic signicance. The key ndings of this paper are as follows. First, the GDP in 1985 is found to experience an inverted U-shaped relationship with the male organ. One result is the collapse in GDP after male 1

organ exceeds the length of 16 centimetres. It is also noteworthy that countries with below 12 centimetre male organs are generally less developed. Penile length alone can explain over 15% of the between-country variation in 1985 GDP. Startlingly the male organ coecients are statistically signicant at the 1% level in all model specications. Second, the average growth rates from 1960 to 1985 are found to be negatively correlated with penile lengths: a unit centimetre increase in its physical dimension is found to reduce GDP growth by 5 to 7% between 1960 and 1985. Quite remarkable is the nding that male organ alone can explain 20% of the between-country variation in GDP growth rates between 1960 and 1985. Regarding the relative importance of political institutions in shaping economic development, it seems that male organ is more strongly associated with GDP growth than countrys political regime type. Male organ diminishes the negative eect of population growth on the level of GDP in 1985 compared to MRW. Moreover, controlling for penile length slightly slows the rate of convergence between rich and poor countries. As intriguing as both of these eects are, they are arguably within the margins of error. Since this paper has merely discovered statistical associations and not causalities, only stylized interpretations are discussed. The rst discussed explanation is biological. Penile length is related to testosterone (Boas et al., 2006), which in turn has been shown to inuence risk-taking (Apicella et al., 2008). If this link holds within-population, then the interpretation could be that for some yet unknown reason the moderate risk-taking countries those with average penile lengths and hence testosterone levels would have the highest GDPs. The second explanation, a more Freudian in tone, revolves around the self-esteem. As is discussed in Wylie & Eardley (2007) and Winter (1989), men with larger penises possess a feeling of greater sexual competence. The essence of the argument is, without elaborating any further at this stage, that the marginal utility of income would be lower in countries with large male organs. These countries would then end up with lower working hours and GDPs. However intriguing, it is somewhat questionable whether these eects would manifest themselves in a highly aggregated, cross-country context. This paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 describes the data and estimated model. Section 3 presents the results. Section 4 discusses and section 5 concludes. Tables, gures and data are in the Appendix.

2
2.1

Data and estimation

Data

The dataset originates from MRW, and includes income, investment, schooling and population statistics from 1960 to 1985. It covers 121 countries but a subsample of 76 from a total of 98 non-oil producing economies is used here. This dataset is well-known and extensively used in the growth literature. Detailed descriptions of the data and its limitations are provided in previous studies (Mankiw et al., 1992; Summers & Heston, 1988; Barro, 1991). Sample statistics are given in Table (1)1 . As in MRW, GDPs are in per
1 The dataset used in this study is included in the Appendix. It is a subset of the original MRW dataset extended with additional variables relevant to this study.

Table 1: Descriptive statistics Mean and s.d. values for the sample of 98 non-oil producing countries. Variable Mean S.d. GDP1960 2994 2862 GDP1985 5309 5277 I/Y 17.6 7.9 SCHOOL 5.3 3.4 ORGAN 14.5 1.9 POLITY1980 -0.1 7.7 Growth rates 19601985 GDP 3.9 1.8 Working age population 2.2 0.8 Notes: GDP is in per capita. I/Y and SCHOOL are in percentages and averaged over the period. ORGAN is in centimetres. Growth rates are in percent per year.

capita terms. I/Y represents investments as a share of GDP and SCHOOL the percentage of working-age population in secondary school. Both are averaged over the period from 1960 to 1985. Political data comes from the Polity IV Project, which scores countries on scale 10, . . . , +10 according to their regime type2 . Authoritarian regimes are assigned more negative, democratic more positive values. In estimation POLITY2 score for 1980 is used. To alleviate potential endogeneity issues an earlier date would have been preferable. However, as many formerly colonial countries became independent between 1960 and 1985, data was not available for some observations on earlier years. As pointed out in Barro (1996) political regime types interplay with economic development considerably. Endogeneity may thus be severe. However, even given this reservation it is still interesting to see whether the male organ hypothesis is robust to countries position on the autocracydemocracy axis. In accordance with much of the growth literature, a region dummy for African countries is included in the regressions. Here it refers to all countries on the continent, not only on sub-Saharan Africa. It is admittedly dubious to combine one billion people, some 250 Bantu languages and hundreds of diverse cultures into a single binary variable. Yet this convention is in accordance with the literatures canons. The data regarding the physical dimensions of male organs is openly available online and has been compiled [by an unknown party] from an extensive number of sources3 . Large part of the data has been collected by health authorities but some observations are self-reported. Due to the sensitive nature of the subject
2 See http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm for indicators and references therein. 3 See http://www.everyoneweb.com/worldpenissize/ for the list of penis lengths and references therein.

matter, self-reported data might be biased. Without elaborating further, it seems that the observations t anticipated patterns. Still, measurement errors can not be ruled out. The physical dimension of male organ varies considerably across countries, the average being 14.5 centimetres. For example, South Korea and Zaire [now Dem. Rep. of the Congo] have average sizes of 9.66 and 17.93 centimetres, respectively. This high between-country variation is desirable, as it entails smaller variance in the estimated coecient. Currently the data does not include length observations for all of the 98 non-oil producing countries, and hence the subset is reduced to a sample of 76 countries. Male organ can be considered quite convenient a variable for two particular reasons. First, body parts are well dened and relatively easy to measure. Regarding the latter point, the erect length of male organ is used. Second, as is explained in Wylie & Eardley (2007), unarguably penile length might entail certain cultural connotations. However, they might be less severe than those pertaining to, for example, economic freedom or corruption. Hence male organ has many advantages over more contentious variables such as political regime types, IQ, social or economic indicators each of which might be subject to biases of various sorts. It is not unreasonable to conclude that, even allowing for some measurement errors, of all variables used in the study the male organ is actually one of the least problematic.

2.2

Estimation

The study uses Mankiw et al. (1992) as its starting point, and in each estimation the corresponding gures from that study are provided. Hence in each table Model (1) replicates MRW results up to parameter accuracy, and Model (2) presents the same estimations with the 76 country sub-sample. This allows for direct comparison of estimates and fosters transparency. Regressions are made using OLS with the following functional form ln GDPi = 0 + ln Xi + Di + i (1)

where Xi includes investment [I/GDP], working-age population [n + g + ] and human capital [SCHOOL] variables. Vector contains coecients and i {1, ..., N } denotes the number of the observation. Depending on the model, the explained GDP variable can either represent the level in 1985 or the average growth between 1960 and 1985. Furthermore, in order to identify convergence patterns, Y1960 is included in Xi in some specications. Following MRW, Xi includes the advancement of technology g and depreciation rate . Their sum at 0.05 is assumed equal across countries. Together with the average population growth n the former factors constitute an important determinant of the Solow model: namely, the prediction that population growth is inversely related to per capita GDP growth. Di contains POLITY1980 and AFRICA variables and ORGAN in linear or quadratic forms. The rst represents Polity IV [POLITY2] score for 1980, and the second the respective region dummies. As Equation (1) indicates, the estimated model here is the original MRW Solow model with additional male organ, political regime type and Africa controls. No economic interpretation is given for the male organ. Richer, potentially

micro-founded models would clearly be needed to fully account the peculiar role it may have played in the course of economic development. Moreover, presentday economic theory does not provide much intuition in this respect. For these reasons even the a priori sign of the male organ coecient is an open question. Unbiasedness of Equation (1) requires that ORGAN must not be correlated with the error term in the regression model. In particular, GDP ought not to aect the size of male organ. For reasons stated below, this can not be ruled out entirely. As human anatomy evolves rather slowly, the genetic part of the between-population variation in penile lengths should date back to pre-historic times. Hence much of the variation does not result from the developments in recent centuries, and can be considered exogenous to 20th century GDPs. However, improved living standards have increased body height and hence, potentially, male organ size. As is shown in Vogel (1994), average heights did increase between 1750 and 1875 among European populations because of improvements in diets and increases in intakes of calories. However, this is not a sucient condition for endogeneity as height and penile length might be unrelated. Indeed the evidence that dimensions of body parts and penile lengths are correlated, is mixed. Siminoski & Bain (1993) show that height and penile length are positively albeit weakly correlated. On the other hand, according to Shah & Christopher (2002) shoe size and penile length are unrelated. Taking the conservative stance that the physical dimension of male organ is related to body size, endogeneity might result as higher GDPs increase statures over time. If standard of living and penile length covary positively, the latters coecient would be biased upwards. Namely, richer countries should evidence larger male organs because of higher GDPs. Hence in the regressions the male organ coecients are likely to represent upper-bound estimates. However, as penile length is here found to be negatively correlated with GDP especially growth the reverse causality should in fact make the proposed male organ hypothesis stronger. In other words, in the absence of any welfare-induced increase in body stature the inverse relationship between male organ and GDP would be further accentuated. However, the between-population variation in the penile lengths is so substantial that any reverse causation should most likely have only minor detrimental eects on the results.

3
3.1

Results
GDP in 1985

The OLS estimates indicate that the size of male organ has a marked eect on the 1985 per capita GDP. This can be seen in Model (3) in Tables (2) and (3) which show how ORGAN aects the 1985 GDP. The latter, augmented model, has more controls, while the former represents the textbook case. Estimates with both sets of controls suggest that an inverse U-shaped relationship exists between GDP and the physical dimension of male organ. Hence countries with average-sized male organs tend to be developed, while those at the extremes of the penile length spectrum are relatively poor. All ORGAN coecients are signicant at least at the 5% level irrespective of the controls. Comparing the coecients in the augmented model of Table (3) suggests that the negative impact of population growth [n + g + ] on GDP is lower

when ORGAN is controlled for. Without male organ 1% increase in population growth decreases the 1985 GDP by 1.65%. However, with male organ this decrease drops to 1.07%. Although this nding falls within the margin of error, it is still noteworthy as it suggests that population growth rates and male organ sizes are interrelated. In fact it seems that population growth is slightly higher at the extremes of the male organ spectrum. Furthermore, the negative eect of population growth on 1985 GDP decreases with more controls. The inclusion of male organ does not materially change the results with respect to investment ratio [I/GDP] or human capital [SCHOOL]. However, as can be seen from Model (4), political regime type [POLITY1980] does not seem to alter the role of male organ. Quite interestingly it also suggests that from the GDP perspective male organs dwarf political institutions in importance yet this result must be taken with reservations. Model (5) indicates that male organ is signicant even after controlling for Africa [AFRICA]. This is encouraging since it suggests that the results are not driven by Africas high ORGAN/GDP ratio. Figure (1) plots the relationship between 1985 GDP and male organ. In this OLS regression the only explanatory variable is ORGAN in the quadratic form. It is noteworthy that the male organ can alone explain over 15% of the variation in GDPs. The inverted U-shaped relationship also shows how the GDPs collapse when the average penile length exceeds 16 centimetres. Most of these countries are found in Africa and Latin America. However, at the lower-end a similar pattern is found: the majority of countries with male organs smaller than 12 centimetres are relatively poor. These are often Asian countries. In conclusion, the inverted U-shaped link between the 1985 GDP and male organ seems robust. Interestingly it remains highly signicant even with the full set of controls.

3.2

GDP growth between 1960 and 1985

The eect of male organ on GDP growth between 1960 and 1985 is presented in Tables (4) and (5). The former represents the textbook case, while the latter includes the full set of controls. As can be seen from Model (3), it has a statistically signicant eect on the average GDP growth between 1960 and 1985. Without controlling for human capital, every incremental centimetre in ORGAN reduces GDP growth during the period by 7%. Comparison of Models (2) and (3) in Table (4) indicates that male organ does not have material impact on other coecients, and hence that the original MRW results are robust in this respect. Model (4) implies that Africa decreases the negative coecient of ORGAN from -0.07 to -0.05. Although this shift is not statistically signicant, it suggests that part of male organs negative eect is due to Africas combination of poor economic performance and large male organs. Yet interestingly it can only explain away part of the male organs negative eect. Table (5) shows how human capital [SCHOOL] and political regime type [POLITY1980] aect the results. The eect of ORGAN is again signicant. However, more interesting is the pattern concerning convergence. As can be seen, the inclusion of male organ aects the coecient of GDP in 1960 [Y1960]. The dierence of Y1960 coecients between Model (2) and (3) falls within the margins of error, but it is still possible that male organ could slow the 6

convergence slightly. Some of the interaction probably takes place through Africa. Comparison of the Y1960 coecients in Model (4) and (5) hints to this direction since with AFRICA the convergence quickens slightly. Models (4) and (5) of Table (5) highlight an interesting nding of this paper, namely that male organ seems to be more important than political regime as a determinant of GDP growth. This result is robust to the full set of controls. Striking as it sound, caution should be exercised when interpreting this result political regime type is likely to be a highly endogenous variable. Figure (2) plots the ratio of per capita GDP between 1960 and 1985 against the size of male organ. In this OLS regression the only explanatory variable is ORGAN in the linear form, while the dependent variable is the ratio of GDP between 1960 and 1985. The pattern suggests that male organ is negatively associated with GDP growth. In fact the male organ alone can explain some 20% of the variation in GDP growth. This is quite a startling nding, since a priori the two variables could be considered unrelated. In conclusion, these results show that male organ is signicant in all specications. It is especially noteworthy that it remains signicant at the 10% level even when political regime type and Africa is controlled for.

Discussion

Taken at face value, the results presented here suggest that economic development is not invariant to the physical dimension of male organ in non-oil producing countries between 1960 and 1985. However, the exact channel through which these eects could take place remains unclear. Two very speculative explanations the rst biological and the second behavioral or sexual are discussed below. First, Boas et al. (2006) show that penile lengths and testosterone levels are related in infant boys. Furthermore, as indicated in Apicella et al. (2008) salivary testosterone levels have been shown to be positively associated with risktaking behavior. Assuming these links hold it would suggest that male organ acts as a proxy for risk-taking. Given the inverted U-shaped pattern in 1985 GDP, a logical conclusion would then be that an intermediate level of risk-taking in population yields the highest level of economic development. Countries with particularly low or high levels of risk-taking would evidence lower GDPs. What could cause this perplexing pattern is ambiguous, however. Since the nding is very tentative, it is not elaborated in further detail. More sophisticated methods would probably be needed to seriously analyse the issue. Furthermore, the result somewhat contradicts with the evidence of GDP development between 1960 and 1985 which would actually suggest a negative relationship between risk-taking and economic growth. Second, in an evidently Freudian line of thought the notion of self-esteem might be at play. There is evidence that men with larger penises possess a feeling of greater sexual competence (Wylie & Eardley, 2007; Winter, 1989). To bring this nding into an economic context, male organ size s and income y are considered factors in an aggregate self-esteem production function f which then aects utility u. Assuming the following functional form and decreasing returns of self-esteem, namely u = f (y + s) and f () > 0, f () < 0, the small male organ countries would have higher marginal utility of income than the

large male organ countries. In what follows ss and sl represent average penile lengths in small male organ and large male organ countries, respectively. Expressed a little more formally and abusing the notation, evaluated at given penile lengths ss and sl , du (s = ss ) > du (s = sl ). Assuming similar labor dy dy productivities, the equilibrium should evidence an inverse relationship between GDPs and penile lengths, namely ys > yl . Labor and leisure would vary accordingly. Hence the world would be characterized by two kinds of countries or, to put it more succinctly, representative maleholds. One group would constitute of leisure-poor, high-GDP countries with small male organs; the other of leisure-rich but low-GDP countries with large male organs. At a very stylized level and noting that the within-region male organ variation is substantial the former would correspond to Asia, the latter to Latin America and Africa, with Europe somewhere in-between. However, this theoretizing is conspicuously masculine and omits the role of women altogether. Nevertheless, it can elegantly account for certain stylized empirical regularities and is hence noteworthy. Establishing the potential causalities is a futile attempt within the framework adopted here. More nuanced methods would clearly be needed. It is arguably likely that the penile lengths just capture some latent country characteristics. Nevertheless, notwithstanding their external validity the interpretations proposed here are novel, and probably worth pursuing in subsequent work.

Conclusions

This paper identies and estimates the link between economic development and the physical dimension of male organ in population. It shows that the relationship between 1985 per capita GDP and penile length evidences an inverse U-shaped pattern. A strongly negative association between GDP growth from 1960 to 1985 and male organ is also identied. Somewhat surprisingly, penile length was a stronger determinant of economic development than countrys political regime type at the Polity IV autocracydemocracy spectrum. However, political institutions are notoriously endogenous, and hence the result must be taken with reservations. Encouragingly, the results were robust to Africa controls. With minor exceptions the original coecients in Mankiw et al. (1992) remain largely unchanged, which evidently speaks to MRWs robustness. To vaguely interpret these perplexing patterns, the roles of testosterone and selfesteem are proposed. For obvious reasons the male organ narrative yields little in terms of feasible policy recommendations and hence further discussion is omitted. This study has made three contributions. First, it reveals the somewhat perplexing link between the size of male organ and economic growth. Second, it provides some rudimentary interpretations which state that macroeconomic growth might be related to populations risk-taking and/or self-esteem. Third, for the best of authors knowledge the interplay between sex and macroeconomic outcomes is novel, and has not been discussed in the literature before. Obviously the proposed male organ hypothesis should be tested with more elaborate methods and data. Until then it remains an intriguing statistical artefact.

References
C. Apicella, et al. (2008). Testosterone and nancial risk preferences. Evolution and Human Behavior 29(6). R. Barro (1991). Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 106(2). R. Barro (1996). Determinants of Economic Growth: a Cross-Country Empirical Study. No. 5698. National Bureau of Economic Research. M. Boas, et al. (2006). Postnatal penile length and growth rate correlate to serum testosterone levels: a longitudinal study of 1962 normal boys. European Journal of Endocrinology 154. J. Helliwell (1994). Empirical Linkages Between Democracy and Economic Growth. British Journal of Political Science 24(2). G. Jones & J. Schneider (2006). Intelligence, human capital, and economic growth: A Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates (BACE) approach. Journal of Economic Growth 11(1). G. Mankiw, et al. (1992). A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 107(2). J. Shah & A. Christopher (2002). Can shoe size predict penile length?. British Journal of Urology International 90(6). K. Siminoski & J. Bain (1993). The relationships among height, penile length, and foot size. Annals of Sex Research 6(3). R. Solow (1956). A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 70(1). R. Summers & A. Heston (1988). A New Set of International Comparisons of Real Product and Price Levels Estimates for 130 Countries, 19501985. Review of Income & Wealth 34(1). R. Vogel (1994). Economic Growth, Population Theory, and Physiology: The Bearing of Long-Term Processes on the Making of Economic Policy. American Economic Review 84(3). H. Winter (1989). An examination of the relationships between penis size and body image, genital image, and perception of sexual competency in the male. Dissertation Abstracts International 50(1225). K. Wylie & I. Eardley (2007). Penile size and the small penis syndrome. British Journal of Urology International 99(6).

Appendix
Figure 1: GDP in 1985 and the size of male organ in 76 countries, ORGAN in linear and quadratic form, R2 =0.15
20000

q q q
Canada

15000

q q q
Japan

Singapore

q q Switzerland q q q q Australia qq q New Zealand q q q

Denmark

q q q q

France

GDP 1985 ($)

10000

Italy

5000

q q
South Korea

Portugal

q q
0

Thailand

q q
India

Sri Lanka Philippines

Pakistan

q Burma

q Chile q q q Uruguayq q q q Turkey q Costa Rica q q Tunisia q Peru q q q q Dominican Rep. Guatemala q q q Congo q qq qq q Zimbabwe Cameroon q q SenegalSudan Nigeria q q q qq q q Ghana q q Ethiopia Somalia q q q q

qq

10

12

14

16

18

Male organ (cm)

Figure 2: GDP ratio between 1985 and 1960 and the size of male organ in 76 countries, ORGAN in linear form, R2 =0.20
6

q
5

Singapore

q q q
South Korea

Japan

GDP 1985/1960

q q
Thailand

q q

q q

Burma

q Philippines Sri India q q Lanka

q Congo q q Cameroon q q Tunisia Italy q qq France q qq q q q Pakistan q q Denmark q q Turkey q q Zimbabwe qq Dominican Rep. q Canada q qq q q q q Australia q Switzerland q q q q New Zealandq qRica q q Costa Guatemala Peru qq q Ethiopia q q q Uruguay Senegal Chile q Nigeria q q q q q q Sudan Ghana Somalia q q q q q q q

q Portugal

10

12

14

16

18

Male organ (cm)

10

Table 2: Textbook Solow Model

Dependent variable: log GDP per working-age person in 1985, non-oil countries Model (1) (2) (3) (4) CONSTANT 5.42*** 6.79*** 0.34 -0.60 -1.58 -1.65 (3.30) (2.68) ln(I/GDP) 1.42*** 1.52*** 1.47*** 1.17*** -0.14 -0.16 (0.16) (0.14) ln(n + g + ) -1.98*** -1.57** -1.15. -0.94. -0.56 -0.57 (0.58) (0.48) ORGAN 1.14* 1.25** (0.49) (0.15) ORGAN sq. -0.04* -0.04** (0.01) (0.40) AFRICA -0.93*** (0.01) R2 0.60 0.62 0.65 0.77 Observations 98 76 76 76 Notes: Standard errors in parentheses. Signicance levels in all regressions: *** 0.1%, ** 1%, * 5% and . 10%. Model (1) replicates the estimates in MRW Table I. Model (2) shows (1) with a sub-sample of 76 countries for which ORGAN is available. As in MRW, g + is assumed 0.05.

Table 3: Augmented Solow Model

Dependent variable: log GDP per working-age person in 1985, non-oil countries Model (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) CONSTANT 6.84*** 7.43** -1.51 -1.41 -1.57 (1.17) (1.29) (2.42) (2.31) (2.22) ln(I/GDP) 0.69*** 0.78*** 0.70*** 0.65*** 0.70*** (0.13) (0.16) (0.15) (0.14) (0.14) ln(n + g + ) -1.74*** -1.65*** -1.07* -0.91* -0.89* (0.41) (0.45) (0.43) (0.42) (0.40) ln(SCHOOL) 0.65*** 0.71*** 0.77*** 0.68*** 0.53*** (0.07) (0.10) (0.09) (0.09) (0.11) ORGAN 1.55*** 1.54*** 1.51*** (0.36) (0.34) (0.33) ORGAN sq. -0.05*** -0.05*** -0.05*** (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) POLITY1980 0.01* 0.01. (0.008) (0.008) AFRICA -0.40* (0.15) R2 0.78 0.77 0.81 0.84 0.85 Observations 98 76 76 75 75 Notes: Standard errors in parentheses. Signicance levels in all regressions: *** 0.1%, ** 1%, * 5% and . 10%. Model (1) replicates the estimates in MRW Table II. Model (2) shows (1) with a sub-sample of 76 countries for which ORGAN is available. As in MRW, g + is assumed 0.05.

11

Table 4: Convergence, Textbook Model

Dependent variable: log dierence GDP per working-age person in 19601985, non-oil countries Model (1) (2) (3) (4) CONSTANT 1.91* 2.33* 2.99** 3.19*** (0.83) (1.00) (0.94) (0.92) ln(Y1960) -0.14** -0.18** -0.14* -0.22** (0.05) (0.06) (0.06) (0.07) ln(I/GDP) 0.64*** 0.73*** 0.64*** 0.64*** (0.08) (0.11) (0.10) (0.10) ln(n + g + ) -0.30 -0.32 -0.32 -0.39 (0.30) (0.34) (0.31) (0.30) ORGAN -0.07*** -0.05* (0.02) (0.02) AFRICA -0.25* (0.11) R2 0.40 0.40 0.49 0.52 Observations 98 76 76 76 Notes: Standard errors in parentheses. Signicance levels in all regressions: *** 0.1%, ** 1%, * 5% and . 10%. Model (1) replicates the estimates in MRW Table IV. Model (2) shows (1) with a sub-sample of 76 countries for which ORGAN is available. As in MRW, g + is assumed 0.05.

Table 5: Convergence, Augmented Model

Dependent variable: log dierence GDP per working-age person in 1960 1985, non-oil countries Model (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) CONSTANT 3.02*** 3.37*** 3.68*** 3.13** 3.11** (0.82) (0.94) (0.90) (0.94) (0.94) ln(Y1960) -0.28*** -0.32*** -0.26*** -0.26*** -0.28*** (0.06) (0.06) (0.06) (0.07) (0.07) ln(I/GDP) 0.52*** 0.54*** 0.51*** 0.51*** 0.53*** (0.08) (0.11) (0.10) (0.10) (0.10) ln(n + g + ) -0.50. -0.57. -0.52. -0.68* -0.69* (0.28) (0.31) (0.30) (0.30) (0.30) ln(SCHOOL) 0.23*** 0.31*** 0.25** 0.27*** 0.23** (0.05) (0.08) (0.07) (0.07) (0.08) ORGAN -0.05** -0.04* -0.03. (0.01) (0.01) (0.02) POLITY1980 -0.004 -0.004 (0.006) (0.006) AFRICA -0.13 (0.11) R2 0.48 0.51 0.56 0.57 0.58 Observations 98 76 76 75 75 Notes: Standard errors in parentheses. Signicance levels in all regressions: *** 0.1%, ** 1%, * 5% and . 10%. Model (1) replicates the estimates in MRW Table V. Model (2) shows (1) with a sub-sample of 76 countries for which ORGAN is available. As in MRW, g + is assumed 0.05.

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Table 6: Data 1/2

GDP Work Male Polity Number Country 1960 1985 pop. I/Y School organ 1980 Africa 1 Algeria 2485 4371 2.6 24.1 4.5 14.19 -9 1 2 Angola 1588 1171 2.1 5.8 1.8 15.73 -7 1 3 Benin 1116 1071 2.4 10.8 1.8 16.2 -7 1 4 Botswana 959 3671 3.2 28.3 2.9 6 1 5 Burkina Faso 529 857 0.9 12.7 0.4 15.89 -7 1 6 Burundi 755 663 1.7 5.1 0.4 -7 1 7 Cameroon 889 2190 2.1 12.8 3.4 16.67 -8 1 8 Central Africa 838 789 1.7 10.5 1.4 15.33 -7 1 9 Chad 908 462 1.9 6.9 0.4 15.39 0 1 10 Congo 1009 2624 2.4 28.8 3.8 17.33 -8 1 11 Egypt 907 2160 2.5 16.3 7 15.59 -6 1 12 Ethiopia 533 608 2.3 5.4 1.1 13.53 -7 1 15 Ghana 1009 727 2.3 9.1 4.7 17.31 6 1 17 Ivory Coast 1386 1704 4.3 12.4 2.3 -9 1 18 Kenya 944 1329 3.4 17.4 2.4 -6 1 20 Liberia 863 944 3 21.5 2.5 -7 1 21 Madagascar 1194 975 2.2 7.1 2.6 -6 1 22 Malawi 455 823 2.4 13.2 0.6 -9 1 23 Mali 737 710 2.2 7.3 1 -7 1 24 Mauritania 777 1038 2.2 25.6 1 -7 1 25 Mauritius 1973 2967 2.6 17.1 7.3 9 1 26 Morocco 1030 2348 2.5 8.3 3.6 15.03 -8 1 27 Mozambique 1420 1035 2.7 6.1 0.7 -8 1 28 Niger 539 841 2.6 10.3 0.5 -7 1 29 Nigeria 1055 1186 2.4 12 2.3 15.5 7 1 30 Rwanda 460 696 2.8 7.9 0.4 -7 1 31 Senegal 1392 1450 2.3 9.6 1.7 15.89 -2 1 32 Sierra Leone 511 805 1.6 10.9 1.7 -7 1 33 Somalia 901 657 3.1 13.8 1.1 14.2 -7 1 34 South Africa 4768 7064 2.3 21.6 3 15.29 4 1 35 Sudan 1254 1038 2.6 13.2 2 16.47 -7 1 37 Tanzania 383 710 2.9 18 0.5 -6 1 38 Togo 777 978 2.5 15.5 2.9 -7 1 39 Tunisia 1623 3661 2.4 13.8 4.3 15.01 -9 1 40 Uganda 601 667 3.1 4.1 1.1 3 1 41 Zaire 594 412 2.4 6.5 3.6 17.93 -9 1 42 Zambia 1410 1217 2.7 31.7 2.4 15.78 -9 1 43 Zimbabwe 1187 2107 2.8 21.1 4.4 15.68 4 1 46 Bangladesh 846 1221 2.6 6.8 3.2 11.2 -4 0 47 Burma 517 1031 1.7 11.4 3.5 10.7 -8 0 48 Hong Kong 3085 13372 3 19.9 7.2 11.19 0 49 India 978 1339 2.4 16.8 5.1 10.24 8 0 52 Israel 4802 10450 2.8 28.5 9.5 14.38 9 0 53 Japan 3493 13893 1.2 36 10.9 10.92 10 0 54 Jordan 2183 4312 2.7 17.6 10.8 -10 0 55 South Korea 1285 4775 2.7 22.3 10.2 9.66 -8 0 57 Malaysia 2154 5788 3.2 23.2 7.3 11.49 4 0 58 Nepal 833 974 2 5.9 2.3 -9 0 60 Pakistan 1077 2175 3 12.2 3 12.2 -7 0 Notes: Number denotes reference to MRW data. GDP is in per capita. I/Y and school are in percentages and averaged over the period. Working age population growth rates are in percent per year. Male organ size in centimetres.

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Table 7: Data 2/2

GDP Work Number Country 1960 1985 pop. I/Y School 61 Philippines 1668 2430 3 14.9 10.6 63 Singapore 2793 14678 2.6 32.2 9 64 Sri Lanka 1794 2482 2.4 14.8 8.3 65 Syrian Arab Rep. 2382 6042 3 15.9 8.8 67 Thailand 1308 3220 3.1 18 4.4 70 Austria 5939 13327 0.4 23.4 8 71 Belgium 6789 14290 0.5 23.4 9.3 73 Denmark 8551 16491 0.6 26.6 10.7 74 Finland 6527 13779 0.7 36.9 11.5 75 France 7215 15027 1 26.2 8.9 76 Germany F. Rep. 7695 15297 0.5 28.5 8.4 77 Greece 2257 6868 0.7 29.3 7.9 79 Ireland 4411 8675 1.1 25.9 11.4 80 Italy 4913 11082 0.6 24.9 7.1 83 Netherlands 7689 13177 1.4 25.8 10.7 84 Norway 7938 19723 0.7 29.1 10 85 Portugal 2272 5827 0.6 22.5 5.8 86 Spain 3766 9903 1 17.7 8 87 Sweden 7802 15237 0.4 24.5 7.9 88 Switzerland 10308 15881 0.8 29.7 4.8 89 Turkey 2274 4444 2.5 20.2 5.5 90 UK 7634 13331 0.3 18.4 8.9 92 Canada 10286 17935 2 23.3 10.6 93 Costa Rica 3360 4492 3.5 14.7 7 94 Dominican Rep. 1939 3308 2.9 17.1 5.8 95 El Salvador 2042 1997 3.3 8 3.9 96 Guatemala 2481 3034 3.1 8.8 2.4 97 Haiti 1096 1237 1.3 7.1 1.9 98 Honduras 1430 1822 3.1 13.8 3.7 99 Jamaica 2726 3080 1.6 20.6 11.2 100 Mexico 4229 7380 3.3 19.5 6.6 101 Nicaragua 3195 3978 3.3 14.5 5.8 102 Panama 2423 5021 3 26.1 11.6 103 Trinidad & Tob. 9253 11285 1.9 20.4 8.8 104 US 12362 18988 1.5 21.1 11.9 105 Argentina 4852 5533 1.5 25.3 5 106 Bolivia 1618 2055 2.4 13.3 4.9 107 Brazil 1842 5563 2.9 23.2 4.7 108 Chile 5189 5533 2.3 29.7 7.7 109 Colombia 2672 4405 3 18 6.1 110 Ecuador 2198 4504 2.8 24.4 7.2 112 Paraguay 1951 3914 2.7 11.7 4.4 113 Peru 3310 3775 2.9 12 8 115 Uruguay 5119 5495 0.6 11.8 7 116 Venezuela 10367 6336 3.8 11.4 7 117 Australia 8440 13409 2 31.5 9.8 119 Indonesia 879 2159 1.9 13.9 4.1 120 New Zealand 9523 12308 1.7 22.5 11.9 121 Papua N. G. 1781 2544 2.1 16.2 1.5 Notes: Number denotes reference to MRW data. GDP is in per capita. percentages and averaged over the period. Working age population growth year. Male organ size in centimetres. Male organ 10.85 11.53 10.89 Polity 1980 Africa -9 0 -2 0 6 0 -9 0 10.16 2 0 14.16 10 0 15.85 10 0 15.29 10 0 13.77 10 0 16.01 8 0 14.48 10 0 14.73 8 0 12.78 10 0 15.74 10 0 15.87 10 0 14.34 10 0 13.19 9 0 13.85 9 0 14.8 10 0 14.35 10 0 14.11 -5 0 13.97 10 0 13.92 10 0 15.01 10 0 15.99 6 0 14.88 -2 0 15.67 -5 0 16.01 -9 0 15 1 0 16.3 10 0 15.1 -3 0 15.26 0 0 16.27 -6 0 8 0 12.9 10 0 14.88 -9 0 16.51 -7 0 16.1 -4 0 14.59 -7 0 17.03 8 0 17.77 9 0 15.53 -8 0 16.03 7 0 15.14 -7 0 17.03 9 0 13.31 10 0 11.67 -7 0 13.99 10 0 4 0 I/Y and school are in rates are in percent per

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