We describe gender and socioeconomic inequalities in the Big Five personality traits over the life cycle, using a facet-level inventory linked to administrative data. We estimate life-cycle profiles non-parametrically and test for cohort and sample-selection effects. We discuss the economic...

We use a large, nationally-representative sample of working-age adults to demonstrate that personality (as measured by the Big Five) is stable over a four-year period. Average personality changes are small and do not vary substantially across age groups. Intra-individual personality change is...

Using data from a new longitudinal survey of doctors from Australia, the authors test whether observed large gender-pay gaps among general practitioners (GPs) are the result of women's larger willingness to interrupt their careers. On average, female GPs earn A$83,000 or 54% less than male GPs....

We test whether adverse childhood experiences – exposure to parental maltreatment and its indirect effect on health – are associated with age 30 personality traits. We use rich longitudinal data from a large, representative cohort of young US Americans and exploit differences across siblings...

This paper evaluates the impact of the Australian Baby Bonus – a Jason Gaitz one-off cash transfer – on various aspects of child human capital development. Using high-quality longitudinal cohort data and difference-in-difference models, we compare the outcomes of cohort members whose younger...

We study the role of non-cognitive skills in academic performance of students who are the first in their family to attend university. We collected survey data on an incoming student cohort from a leading Australian university and linked the survey with students' administrative entry and...

Economic theory suggests that selective immigration policies based on observable characteristics will affect unobservable migrant quality. Little empirical evidence exists on this hypothesis. We quantify traditionally unobservable components of migrant quality in Australia, a high-migrant share...

Policy-makers worldwide are embarking on school programmes aimed at boosting students' resilience. One facet of resilience is a belief about cause and effect in life, locus of control. I test whether positive control beliefs work as a psychological buffer against health shocks in adulthood. To...

We investigate whether universities select by, or also shape, their students' personality, as implied by the human capital investment model. Using a nationally representative sample of Australian adolescents followed over eight years, we find that youth conscientiousness, internal locus of...

Cognitive and non-cognitive skills are important determinants of labor market outcomes, but are often unobserved. We propose a proxy for these skills derived from item non-response information and a procedure to test its validity. Exploiting a unique data-collection feature of an Australian...