nep-neu New Economics Papers
on Neuroeconomics
Issue of 2020‒09‒14
four papers chosen by



  1. Social Brain-Constructed Relational Leadership:A Neuroscience View of the Leader-Follower Duality By Dimitriadis, Nikolaos; Psychogios, Alexandros
  2. Environmental Incentives and Parental Investments By Renske Stans
  3. Task Specialization and Cognitive Skills: Evidence from PIAAC and IALS By Martínez Matute, Marta; Villanueva, Ernesto
  4. Cognitive Performance in the Home Office - Evidence from Professional Chess By Künn, Steffen; Seel, Christian; Zegners, Dainis

  1. By: Dimitriadis, Nikolaos; Psychogios, Alexandros
    Abstract: Relationship-based approaches to leadership represent one of the most fast growing leadership fields that emphasize the interaction between the leader and the follower. The critical question though is the way that leadership actors (leaders and followers) are linked to each other and in particular how they try to understand how to do that in the workplace. Also, what is even lessunderstood is the role of consciousness in this relationship. In this respect, this conceptual paper explores consciousness within the context of the social brain theory to argue that leadership actors need to revise their approach to individuality and focus on mutually dependent relations. We introduce the concept of Homo Relationalis arguing that leadership is not just social constructed element, but also social brain constructed phenomenon. We finally recommend a new approach ofapplying cognitive style analysis to capture the duality of leader/follower in the same person, following the self-illusion theory.
    Keywords: Relational Leadership; Neuroscience; Leader-Follower; Consciousness; Cognitive styles
    Date: 2020–01–13
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:akf:cafewp:1&r=all
  2. By: Renske Stans
    Abstract: This paper analyses how a family's economic environment influences parental investments in children's development. Worsening economic conditions can incentivize parental investments by raising the importance of human capital accumulation in ensuring later-life success. Using a large representative German survey, in a regional and time- fixed e ffects setting, I estimate the causal impact of the local unemployment rate on parental investment measures. I find that a rise in the unemployment rate increases measures of maternal support, academic interest and homework assistance. Furthermore, heterogeneity analysis suggests that the responsiveness of parenting behavior on economic incentives di ffers by parental and child background characteristics such as parental locus of control and secondary school track.
    Keywords: parenting, human capital, regional labor market
    JEL: J13 J24 R23
    Date: 2020–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2020_205&r=all
  3. By: Martínez Matute, Marta (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid); Villanueva, Ernesto (Bank of Spain)
    Abstract: We study how the tasks conducted on the job relate to measures of cognitive skills using data from 18 countries participating in the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competences (PIAAC) and from 13 countries that also participate in the International Adult Literacy Study (IALS). We document two main findings. Firstly, individual- fixed effect models suggest that low-educated workers in jobs involving a particular set of basic tasks -say, in numeric rather than reading or ICT tasks- obtain 10% of one standard deviation higher scores in the domain of the PIAAC assessment most related to those tasks than in the rest -say, numeracy relative to literacy or problem-solving scores. The estimates are weaker for workers with a high school or college degree, those with more than 10 years of experience or who are males. Secondly, a synthetic cohort analysis using repeated literacy assessments in IALS and PIAAC indicates that, among the low-educated, long-run increases in the reading task component of jobs correlate positively with increases in cohort-level literacy scores. An interpretation of our findings is that tasks conducted on the job help in building human capital. Under that interpretation, our back-of-the envelope estimates suggest that the contribution of one year of on-the-job learning to skill formation is between a half and a fourth of an extra year of compulsory schooling.
    Keywords: human capital, tasks, education, working experience, cognitive skills
    JEL: J24 J31 I20
    Date: 2020–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13555&r=all
  4. By: Künn, Steffen (Maastricht University); Seel, Christian (Maastricht University); Zegners, Dainis (Erasmus University Rotterdam)
    Abstract: During the recent COVID-19 pandemic, traditional (offline) chess tournaments were prohibited and instead held online. We exploit this as a unique setting to assess the impact of moving offline tasks online on the cognitive performance of individuals. We use the Artificial Intelligence embodied in a powerful chess engine to assess the quality of chess moves and associated errors. Using within-player comparisons, we find a statistically and economically significant decrease in performance when competing online compared to competing offline. Our results suggest that teleworking might have adverse effects on workers performing cognitive tasks.
    Keywords: productivity, teleworking, chess, COVID-19
    JEL: H12 L23 M11 M54
    Date: 2020–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13491&r=all

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