Many studies have focused on the influence of human capital and other 'objective' factors on career achievement. In our study, we go a step further by also looking at the impact of self-reported personality traits on differences in career chances. For the first time - to our knowledge - we compare managers and other white-collar employees in Germany's private sector and find evidence that personality ...
Educational attainment, length of stay, differences in national background and language skills play an acknowledged important role for the integration of immigrants. But integration is also a social process, which suggests that psychological factors are relevant. This paper explores whether and to what extent immigrants and their children need to believe in their ability to control their own success. ...
This paper investigates the short-term effects of a reduction in the length of high school on students' personality traits using a school reform carried out at the state level in Germany as a quasi-natural experiment. Starting in 2001, academic-track high school (Gymnasium) was reduced from nine to eight years in most of Germany's federal states, leaving the overall curriculum unchanged. This enabled ...
We examine differences in altruism and laziness between public sector employees and private sector employees. Our theoretical model predicts that the likelihood of public sector employment increases with a worker·s altruism, and increases or decreases with a workers laziness depending on his altruism. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, we find that public sector employees are significantly ...
Using longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we show that paternal unemployment has a surprisingly positive causal effect on the "Big 5" personality traits of children aged 17 to 25. In particular, our results from longitudinal value-added models for personality suggest that paternal unemployment makes children significantly more conscientious and less neurotic. Our results ...