This paper presents an empirical investigation of the relation between decision speed and decision quality for a real-world setting of cognitively-demanding decisions in which the timing of decisions is endogenous: professional chess. Move-by-move data provide exceptionally detailed and precise...

This paper presents a novel approach to analyze human decision-making that involves comparing the behavior of professional chess players relative to a computational benchmark of cognitively bounded rationality. This benchmark is constructed using algorithms of modern chess engines and allows...

This paper presents novel evidence for the prevalence of deviations from rational behavior in human decision making - and for the corresponding causes and consequences. The analysis is based on move-by-move data from chess tournaments and an identification strategy that compares behavior of...

One of the most important policy goals in industrialized countries is to increase the skill level of the labor force by life-long-learning strategies. In this paper our aim is to explain to what extent the variation in training investments is determined either by (observed and unobserved)...

In this paper, we study whether performance feedback can serve as an instrument for firms to increase employee retention. Feedback on the relative performance may affect individual job search behavior differently depending on workers' relative rank among their peers. In line with these...

German social security records involve an indicator for part-time or full-time work. In 2011, the reporting procedure was changed suggesting that a fraction of worker recorded to be working full-time before the change were in fact part-time workers. This study develops a correction based on...

Career guidance assists students with the school-to-work transition. Based on a survey in secondary schools in Germany, we analyze career guidance activities and how these affect career plans. The take-up of career guidance depends upon the school track attended and upon the school and class...

Despite the importance for socio-economic outcomes, there is an ongoing debate about the stability of personality traits over the life cycle. By disentangling age, period and cohort influences on personality traits, this paper adds to the existing empirical contributions, which often focus on...

Estimating the returns to migration from East to West Germany, this paper focuses on pre-migration employment dynamics, earnings uncertainty, and job change in the source region. Migrants are found to be negatively selected with respect to labor market outcomes, with a large drop in earnings and...