The Relationship between Economic Preferences and Psychological Personality Measures

Abstract

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The importance of early conscientiousness for socio-economic outcomes: evidence from the British Cohort Study

“…Becker et al (2012) obtain similar outcomes for Germany. They show that risk aversion and conscientiousness are correlated, without investigating individual facets.…”

“…5 Borghans et al (2008a) and Almlund et al (2011) summarise these attempts and suggest models for understanding and building productive linkages. Becker et al (2012) empirically explore three datasets to link personality traits to economic preference parameters and find complementarity between the two. Borghans et al (2008b) find that performance motivation, fear of failure, internal locus of control, curiosity, low discount rates, and risk aversion are positively associated with more correct answers on a cognition test.…”

On the interpretation of non-cognitive skills – What is being measured and why it matters

“…2 For a paper that focuses on the relation between psychological personality measures and economic preference measures see Becker et al (2012).…”

Serving the public interest in several ways: Theory and empirics

“…The key variables that we use for our analysis are self-reported altruism, money donations to charity, and job type or sector of employment. Following Becker et al (2012) and Dur and Zoutenbier (2015), we measure a worker's altruism by his response to the question: "How important do you …nd it to be there for others currently? "Donations to charity are measured by the response to the question: "Did you donate money last year (not counting membership fees)?"…”

“…We measure charitable donations by the response to the question: "Did you donate money last year (not counting membership fees)?" 9 The respondents who answered this question with "yes" were subsequently asked how much money they donated in total. Following Becker et al (2012) and Dur and Zoutenbier (2015), we measure altruistic preferences by the respondent's answer to the question: "How important are the following things [being there for others] currently for you?"…”