Patience, Risk-Taking, and Human Capital Investment Across Countries

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hanushek, Eric A.; Kinne, Lavinia; Lergetporer, Philipp; Woessmann, Ludger
• 署名单位: Stanford University; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; National Bureau of Economic Research; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; Technical University of Munich; University of Munich; IZA Institute Labor Economics
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1093/ej/ueab105
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 2290-2307
• 关键词: international differences; culture; skills; preferences; impatience; ECONOMICS; returns

摘要

Patience and risk-taking-two preference components that steer intertemporal decision-making-are fundamental to human capital investment decisions. To understand how they contribute to international skill differences, we combine Programme for International Student Assessment tests with the Global Preference Survey. We find that opposing effects of patience (positive) and risk-taking (negative) together account for two-thirds of the cross-country variation in student skills. In an identification strategy addressing unobserved residence country features, we find similar results when assigning migrant students their country-of-origin preferences in models with residence country fixed effects. Associations of national preferences with family and school inputs suggest that both may act as channels.