A dynamic model of personality, schooling, and occupational choice

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Todd, Petra E.; Zhang, Weilong
• 署名单位: University of Pennsylvania; University of Cambridge
• 刊物名称: QUANTITATIVE ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1759-7323
• DOI: 10.3982/QE890
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 231-275
• 关键词: Personality traits and education policies; occupational choice; unobserved types; human capital investment; dynamic discrete choice; D61; I26; J24

摘要

This paper develops a dynamic model of schooling and occupational choices that incorporates personality traits, as measured by the big five traits. The model is estimated using the HILDA dataset from Australia. Personality traits are found to play an important role in explaining education and occupation choices over the lifecycle. Results show that individuals with a comparative advantage in schooling and white-collar work have, on average, higher cognitive skills and higher personality trait scores. Allowing personality traits to evolve with age and with schooling proves to be important to capturing the heterogeneity in how people respond to educational policies. The estimated model is used to evaluate two education policies: compulsory senior secondary school and a 50% college tuition subsidy. Both policies increase educational attainment and also affect personality traits.