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on Neuroeconomics |
| By: | Hottenrott, Hanna; Schoonjans, Eline |
| Abstract: | Economic crises can have substantial impacts on companies and their stakeholders. The ability of organizations to manage and cope with crises is therefore central to the direction and severity of their impact. We explore an underidentified determinant of strategic crisis management by focusing on the role of decision-makers' non-cognitive and cognitive traits. In a representative sample of 1, 408 young companies founded between 2012 and 2019 in Germany, we find that founders' personality impacts the choice of crisis management strategy in the COVID-19 context. Risk-tolerant founders respond with operative innovation rather than retrenchment. Conscientiousness is linked to choosing a perseverance strategy and openness to experience to strategic innovation. More agreeable founders, however, are generally less responsive. Finally, migration experience and education are positively associated with innovative crisis responses. Our results have implications for policymakers and practitioners when designing measures to cope with economic distress. |
| Keywords: | Strategic Crisis Management, Crisis Responses, COVID-19, Founder Personality, Cognitive Traits |
| JEL: | D21 L21 L26 M2 O30 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:312574 |
| By: | Schmitz, Hendrik; Westphal, Matthias |
| Abstract: | We study the interaction of education in adolescence and labor force participation around retirement age and its effect on cognitive abilities for individuals in Europe. Besides a direct long-run effect of education, indirect ones may arise, specifically through labor force participation. We suggest an estimator for causal mediation analysis that accommodates endogeneity and heterogeneous treatment effects and use it to identify indirect effects within the education effect. We find that education raises cognitive abilities by about 8 percent. Among the more educated, labor force participation accounts for 36 percent of the total effect, emphasizing important complementarities between education and labor force participation. |
| Abstract: | Wir untersuchen die Wechselwirkung zwischen der Bildung in der Jugend und der Beteiligung am Erwerbsleben im Rentenalter und ihre Auswirkungen auf die kognitiven Fähigkeiten von Personen in Europa. Neben einem direkten langfristigen Effekt der Bildung können indirekte Effekte auftreten, insbesondere durch die Erwerbsbeteiligung. Wir schlagen einen Schätzer für die kausale Mediationsanalyse vor, der Endogenität und heterogene Behandlungseffekte berücksichtigt und verwenden ihn zur Identifizierung indirekter Effekte innerhalb des Bildungseffekts. Es stellt sich heraus, dass Bildung die kognitiven Fähigkeiten um etwa 8 Prozent erhöht. Bei den höher Gebildeten ist die Erwerbsbeteiligung für 36 Prozent des Gesamteffekts verantwortlich. Dies unterstreicht die wichtigen Komplementaritäten zwischen Bildung und Erwerbsbeteiligung. |
| Keywords: | Cognitive abilities, causal mediation analysis, marginal treatment effects, education |
| JEL: | C31 J14 J24 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:315483 |
| By: | Tsegay Tekleselassie; Marc Witte; Jonas Radbruch; Lukas Hensel; Ingo E. Isphording |
| Abstract: | We conduct a field experiment with job seekers to investigate how feedback influences job search and labor market outcomes. Job seekers who receive feedback on their ability compared to other job seekers update their beliefs and increase their search effort. Specifically, initially underconfident individuals intensify their job search. In contrast, overconfident individuals do not adjust their behavior. Moreover, job seekers’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) for feedback predicts treatment effects: only among underconfident individuals with positive WTP, we observe significant increases in both search effort and search success. We present suggestive evidence that this pattern arises from heterogeneity in how job seekers perceive the relevance of relative cognitive ability to job search returns. While the intervention appears cost-effective, job seekers’ WTP remains insufficient to cover its costs. |
| Keywords: | job search, overconfidence, feedback, willingness-to-pay, field experiment |
| JEL: | C93 J24 J64 J22 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11746 |
| By: | Philip Verwimp |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effect of civil war exposure in (early) childhood on school test scores as a teenager. It uses tests scores from the Concours National in Burundi, a nationwide competitive exam taken at the end of primary school, consisting of four academic disciplines for the period 2010-2012. These data are combined with exposure to civil war at different stages in childhood. The paper finds that an average duration of war exposure from in utero to age 12 (4.3 years) increases the age at which the test is taken with 1.72 years and causes a drop in the test score of 5.5 points on average (which is about 5% of the average grade), of which 1.75 points can be attributed to the scarring effect of war exposure and 3.75 points to the cognitive effect. The effects vary according to the timing of the shocks in childhood and along the distribution of test scores. Boys suffer more from the scarring effect, obtaining significantly lower test scores than girls from taking the exam at a later age, whereas girls suffer more from the cognitive effect of war shocks, conditional on age-at-test. Girl’s performance is more affected than boys for mathematics but not more for languages. The paper finds evidence for a sex-specific selection mechanism in utero. |
| Keywords: | civil war, childhood, education, teenager |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eca:wpaper:2013/390055 |
| By: | Yuval Salant; Jörg L. Spenkuch; David Almog |
| Abstract: | We explore the role of memory for choice behavior in unfamiliar environments. Using a unique data set, we document that decision makers exhibit a “memory premium.” They tend to choose in-memory alternatives over out-of-memory ones, even when the latter are objectively better. Consistent with well-established regularities regarding the inner workings of human memory, the memory premium is associative, subject to interference and repetition effects, and decays over time. Even as decision makers gain familiarity with the environment, the memory premium remains economically large. Our results imply that the ease with which past experiences come to mind plays an important role in shaping choice behavior. |
| Keywords: | memory, choice behaviour, decision-making, chess960 |
| JEL: | D01 D87 D91 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11787 |