How valuable is education for entrepreneurs’ performance as compared to employees’? What might explain any differences? And does education affect peoples’ occupational choices accordingly? We answer these questions based on a large panel of US labor force participants. We show that...

How valuable are cognitive and social abilities for entrepreneurs’ incomes as compared to employees? We answer three questions: (1) To what extent does a composite measure of ability affect an entrepreneur's earnings relative to employees? (2) Do different cognitive abilities (e.g. math...

This paper examines the extent to which human capital theory can explain observed wage differentialsin the Russian Federation. Wage and income dispersion have increased markedly in Russia in the sixyears since the transition began. Some studies conclude that this is an indicator that Russian...

The authors adopt the Five-Factor Model of personality structure to explore how personalityaffected the earnings of a large group of men and women who graduated from Wisconsin highschools in 1957 and were re-interviewed in 1992. All five basic traits–extroversion,...

We examine how multitasking affects performance and check whether women are indeed better at multitasking. Subjects in our experiment perform two different tasks according to three treatments: one where they perform the tasks sequentially, one where they are forced to multitask, and one where...

How do people react to setbacks and successes? I introduce a new measure of challenge-seeking to determine the effect of winning and losing in a competition on the willingness to seek further challenges. Participants in a lab experiment compete in two-person tournaments and are then informed of...

Labor markets in Western countries are becoming more and more flexible, thereby meeting the needs of employers. Yet the new flexibility also offers opportunities to workers, while at the same time bears the risk of long-term exclusion. This paper deals with unequal chances on the contemporary...

Alphabetic name ordering on multi-authored academic papers_new, which is the convention in theeconomics discipline and various other disciplines, is to the advantage of people whose lastname initials are placed early in the alphabet. As it turns out, Professor A, who has been afirst author more...

Nobel laureates in economics make their most important and creative contributionsbetween the ages of 29 and 38. The average creative age of Nobel economists is slightly belowthat of laureates in physics, and considerably younger than that of laureates in chemistry andmedicine/physiology. The...