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on Neuroeconomics |
| By: | Nunnari, Salvatore; Proto, Eugenio; Rustichini, Aldo |
| Abstract: | Rational choice theories assume that voters accurately assess the outcomes of policies. However, many important policies—such as regulating prices and introducing Pigouvian taxation—yield outcomes through indirect or equilibrium effects that may differ from their direct effects. Citizens may underestimate these effects, leading to a demand for bad policy, that is, opposition to reforms that would increase welfare or support for reforms that would decrease it. This appreciation might be linked to cognitive functions, raising important research questions: Do cognitive abilities influence how individuals form preferences regarding policies, especially untried reforms? If so, what is the underlying mechanism? We use a simple theoretical framework and an experiment to show that enhanced cognitive abilities may lead to better policy choices. Moreover, we emphasize the crucial role of beliefs about other citizens' cognitive abilities. These findings have important policy implications as they suggest that educational programs developing cognitive skills or interventions increasing trust in others' understanding could improve the quality of democratic decision-making in our societies. |
| Keywords: | Voting; Cognition; Experiment |
| JEL: | C90 D72 D91 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19217 |
| By: | Xin Zhang; Yixuan Wang; Xingyi Hu; Xi Chen |
| Abstract: | We examine how prenatal exposure to air pollution interacts with gender-biased parental investments to shape long-run cognitive performance. Using nationally representative survey data from China, we show that fetal PM2.5 exposure significantly reduces cognitive ability for women, particularly among those with brothers. Our evidence suggests that the family investment channel operates primarily through education rather than health, with gender-biased educational resource allocation compounding negative outcomes for females. Specifically, conditional on the same level of fetal PM2.5 exposure, females receive less homework assistance from their families and attain lower levels of education. |
| JEL: | D13 I14 I24 J13 J16 Q53 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35591 |
| By: | Philipp Dierker; Dalton Conley |
| Abstract: | Parents’ and teachers’ expectations and aspirations are critical drivers of educational outcomes, yet what causally shapes these expectations remains unclear. In the present study, we address this question by deploying the random experiment of meiosis: namely, conditional on parental genotype, offspring genotype is random, allowing for the unconfounding of unique child characteristics from the more general family and household environment. Using the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, we employ Mendelian imputation to estimate the direct genetic effects of 18 polygenic indices on college encouragement, net of parental genetic background. The genetic propensity for educational attainment and mathematical ability predict stronger expectations of college attendance, while smoking behavior predicts weaker expectations. Psychiatric traits show no effects after multiple-testing correction, indicating that responses are concentrated on cognitive and behavioral traits. Mediation analysis finds that prospectively measured teachers’ encouragement accounts for roughly a quarter of the genetic effects on educational attainment for cognitive traits, but not for psychiatric traits. Genetic effects on expectations are amplified among high-SES parents and first-born children. Thus, genetic influences on educational expectations are narrow in trait scope and uneven across families, with encouragement serving as one channel linking genetic differences to educational inequality. |
| JEL: | I19 I24 J10 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35576 |
| By: | Paul Gregg; Yuyan Jiang; Lindsey Macmillan; Nikki Shure; Gill Wyness |
| Abstract: | This paper provides new evidence on intergenerational income persistence for a recent UK cohort. Using Next Steps, a longitudinal study of people born in England in 1989-90 linked to administrative education records, we estimate the association between parental income in adolescence and sons' earnings at age 32, compare the results with the 1970 British Cohort Study, and decompose persistence by early cognitive skills, noncognitive traits and educational attainment. Our preferred estimates show an intergenerational income elasticity of 0.214 and a rank-rank coefficient of 0.287. The rank-rank estimate is almost identical to the comparable estimate for the 1970 cohort, suggesting little change in relative income persistence across cohorts, although age-32 elasticities are likely to understate lifetime persistence. Education is the main observed mechanism: GCSE attainment, A-level attainment and degree completion account for a substantial share of persistence, while measured noncognitive traits explain little once education is included. The findings show that, despite educational expansion, family-income gradients in attainment remain central to the intergenerational transmission of economic advantage. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational income mobility, socioeconomic inequality, education, skills |
| Date: | 2026–08–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp2206 |
| By: | Melis Kartal; Edoardo Cefala; Sylvia Kritzinger; Jean-Robert Tyran |
| Abstract: | We combine a simple theoretical framework with a survey experiment to investigate how individuals sort fact from fiction and update their assessments in societally important but politicized topics, such as climate change and public health. We show that cognitive ability improves news discernment and in particular, the ability to make correct assessments that contradict one’s prior issue positions. However, when we disaggregate results by topic, higher cognitive ability sometimes amplifies motivated decision-making rather than attenuating it. Our framework and findings suggest a hard–easy pattern: more complex issues elicit greater motivated reasoning; simpler ones elicit less. In addition, overconfidence reduces responsiveness to new information, contributing to the persistence of misperceptions. Higher institutional trust appears to weaken motivated reasoning, suggesting that institutional quality may play an important role in constraining opinion polarization. |
| Keywords: | misinformation, cognitive ability, motivated reasoning, overconfidence, online survey experiment, institutions |
| JEL: | D72 D83 D91 I21 L82 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12932 |
| By: | Robbie Maris (UCL Centre for Education Policy & Equalising Opportunities); Jake Anders (UCL Centre for Education Policy & Equalising Opportunities); Tammy Campbell (Education Policy Institute); Gill Wyness (UCL Centre for Education Policy & Equalising Opportunities) |
| Abstract: | Policies that require low-attaining students to continue investing in foundational skills may generate future human-capital benefits but also impose short-run psychological costs. We study this trade-off using England's compulsory GCSE English and mathematics resit requirement. Using longitudinal survey data from the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS), we estimate the effect of exposure to England's compulsory resit requirement on adolescent wellbeing, controlling for cognitive ability, prior wellbeing and a rich set of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. We conduct a cross-country falsification test using Wales and Northern Ireland, where students also take GCSEs but face no comparable national resit requirement. We find that exposure to the requirement lowers wellbeing at age 17 by approximately 0.11 SDs. These effects are about exposure to retakes at the extensive margin - we find no evidence of an additional penalty for retaking in multiple subjects. Our average estimates conceal substantial heterogeneity: English resitting is associated with lower wellbeing among boys, while mathematics resitting is associated with lower wellbeing among girls. For boys resitting English, the negative estimates are concentrated among students further below the pass threshold, consistent with a discouragement mechanism; for girls resitting mathematics, they are concentrated among those who narrowly miss the threshold, consistent with a near-miss penalty. The results identify a potentially important non-pecuniary cost of compulsory remedial education and highlight a trade-off between policies designed to raise foundational skills and adolescent wellbeing. |
| Keywords: | resits, remedial education, human capital, mental health, education policy |
| JEL: | I21 I28 I12 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucl:cepeow:26-08 |
| By: | Christophe Haag (EM - EMLyon Business School) |
| Abstract: | Emotional intelligence (EI) has increasingly been conceptualized as a developable set of emotional abilities contributing to adaptive functioning across adulthood. However, longitudinal evidence obtained in ecological organizational contexts remains limited, particularly for performance-based emotional intelligence frameworks. The present longitudinal field study investigated the effects of a large-scale emotional intelligence intervention implemented within a French public-sector institution using the QEPro performance-based framework of ability emotional intelligence. The intervention combined experiential learning, emotional decoding, and emotion regulation training over approximately 18 months. N = 90 participants completed both pre-and post-training assessments. Linear mixed-effects models revealed significant improvements in global emotional intelligence scores as well as across most emotional competencies. The intervention was additionally associated with a medium-to-large effect size for the global QEPro score (Cohen's dav = 0.73). The strongest gains were observed for Interpreting Emotional Cues, Emotion Regulation, and Identifying Emotions. Reliable Change Index analyses indicated that 42.2% of participants demonstrated emotional progression exceeding expected measurement variability. Findings are consistent with the hypothesis that ability emotional intelligence remains developmentally plastic during adulthood and may significantly evolve through structured experiential learning processes. |
| Keywords: | Longitudinal study, QEPro, Performance-based assessment, Adulthood development, Management, Emotional plasticity, Ability emotional intelligence |
| Date: | 2026–12–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05708334 |
| By: | Holden, Stein T. (Centre for Land Tenure Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences); Tione, Sarah (Centre for Land Tenure Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences) |
| Abstract: | We study how trust and trustworthiness respond to social distance and how beliefs, norms, and cognitive precision shape social exchange in a field experiment with irrigation farmers. Using a standard trust game with within-subject variation in social-distance framing, we distinguish interactions with an anonymous partner from the same irrigation block from interactions with a partner from another scheme within the same district. In addition to trust and reciprocal behavior, we elicit beliefs about expected returns, stated moral obligations to reciprocate, risk preferences, and decision precision measured through consistency in multiple price list choices. <p> The results reveal a clear asymmetry between trust and trustworthiness. Changes in trust across social-distance framings are primarily driven by changes in beliefs, whereas trustworthiness is more strongly associated with normative commitments and exhibits greater behavioral stability across contexts. Cognitive precision is positively related to baseline levels of trust but is associated with smaller framing-induced changes in trustworthiness, consistent with an interpretation of precision as stabilizing behavior rather than uniformly increasing prosociality. Risk preferences play a limited role once beliefs are taken into account.<p>By separating trust from trustworthiness and by distinguishing between behavioral levels and framing-induced changes, the paper provides new field evidence on the mechanisms underlying social exchange. The findings highlight the importance of beliefs for trusting behavior, norms for reciprocal behavior, and decision precision for the consistency of social decisions across contexts. |
| Keywords: | Social distance; Beliefs; Norms; Decision precision; Trust; Trustworthiness |
| JEL: | C92 C93 D01 D91 |
| Date: | 2026–08–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nlsclt:2026_007 |