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on Neuroeconomics |
| By: | Chang, Eunsik (Mississippi State University); Padilla-Romo, María (University of Tennessee); Peluffo, Cecilia (University of Florida) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the effects of early academic rank in elementary school on later cognitive and noncognitive outcomes in the context of Mexico. We use linked administrative records to compare students with similar third-grade achievement but different ordinal positions. These rank differences arise from idiosyncratic variation in the achievement distributions of elementary-school cohorts. We find that a higher third-grade rank increases performance on a high-stakes high school admission exam. Both broader school-cohort rank and classroom rank contribute to this achievement gain when estimated jointly. Higher rank leads to more selective high school choices and improves self-reported measures of self-perception, academic aspirations, classroom responsibility, learning strategies, and teamwork attitudes by the end of ninth grade. We also provide evidence that higher elementary school rank improves students' high school placement outcomes. |
| Keywords: | school-cohort rank, classroom rank, high-stakes test scores, noncognitive skills |
| JEL: | I21 I25 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18683 |
| By: | Lorenzo Navarini |
| Abstract: | While social skills have become increasingly important in the labour market, other skills may have lost relevance. Estimating these changes is challenging because skills measured before tertiary education affect wages both directly and indirectly through educational sorting. This paper develops a sequential model with cognitive, social, and diligence skills measured at age 17 to estimate direct and total early-career returns across recent German cohorts, while accounting for unobserved ability. Direct returns to social skills increased by 6 percentage points, whereas total returns to diligence declined. Among individuals with low cognitive skills, returns to diligence fell by 10 percentage points, consistent with high-diligence workers sorting into routine-intensive occupations whose value declined under deroutinisation. |
| Keywords: | Multidimensional skills; returns to skills; dynamic treatment effects |
| JEL: | J24 I21 I26 O33 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26170 |
| By: | Daniel Goller; Enzo Brox; Stefan C. Wolter |
| Abstract: | Why do people sort into poorly fitting occupations? This paper shows that imperfect self-knowledge about skills is an important source of skill mismatch at labor market entry. We use unique data from standardized professional aptitude tests linked to administrative records on educational trajectories and early labor market outcomes in Switzerland. The data allow us to observe objective skills and subjective skill beliefs for many productivity-relevant skills in a high-stakes setting. We document large differences among individuals in how well their beliefs align with their skills. Imperfect self-knowledge predicts misaligned occupational aspirations, higher realized skill mismatch, and a higher probability of dropout. Guided by a Roy-style model of occupational choice with imperfect self-knowledge, we interpret these findings as evidence that distorted self-assessments at the school-to-work transition contribute to the misallocation of talent. |
| Keywords: | Information frictions, Occupational choice, Skill mismatch, Self-knowledge |
| JEL: | D83 J24 J41 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26166 |
| By: | Giuseppe Ciccarone; Giovanni Di Bartolomeo; Valentina Peruzzi; Maria Luigia Signore |
| Abstract: | We model creativity as capital built by costly creative effort that complements social capital and is often accompanied by routines that economize attention and time. Higher effort costs are associated with lower entry into the creative state, while openness and trust are associated with higher productivity of creative effort mainly through creative capital. Using field survey data from an Italian music festival and a recursive bivariate probit, we find that costs are negatively associated with creativity, whereas creativity is strongly associated with festival collaboration, volunteering, and territorial cooperation. Consistent with a routinization perspective, the creativity-engagement link is stronger when participation occurs in more socially structured environments. To encourage creativity, policies should reduce cognitive frictions and improve the productivity of creative effort. |
| Keywords: | Creativity, creative effort, social capital, routinization, field survey |
| JEL: | C93 C35 D01 Z13 O31 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ter:wpaper:00206 |
| By: | Paul Grass; Philipp Schirmer; Malin Siemers |
| Abstract: | People often form incomplete mental models, having to revise them as new relevant variables become observable. We show experimentally that models are ‘sticky’: revised models remain strongly influenced by earlier models formed using a subset of variables. Sticky models occur across three different data-generating processes and across heterogeneous reasoning types of subjects. Guided by a simple framework of dy namic model formation, we investigate cognitive effort allocation as a key mechanism: across three DGPs, we find that stickiness is driven by subjects who exert relatively less cognitive effort during the model revision relative to the initial model formation. |
| Keywords: | mental models, learning dynamics, attention, mental representation, bounded rationality |
| JEL: | D83 D91 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2025_763 |