Evidence about job mobility outside the U.S. is scarce and difficult to compare crossnationallybecause of non-uniform data. We document job mobility patterns of collegegraduates in their first three years in the labor market, using unique uniform datacovering 11 European countries and Japan....

Do people choose courses to reduce work-related skill-deficiencies, and do theychoose courses deliberately? We measure the skill-deficiency for six skills andperform an experiment in which workers are offered three courses related tothese skills. They may exchange these courses for other...

This paper explores the interface between personality psychology andeconomics. We examine the predictive power of personality and the stability ofpersonality traits over the life cycle. We develop simple analytical frameworksfor interpreting the evidence in personality psychology and suggest...

In this paper we document the wage structure and labor mobility in the Netherlands in the period 1999-2003. We explain the importance of wage-setting institutions in the Netherlands and the main actors. The analyses are based on administrative sources allowing for comparisons between and within...

We review the empirical literature about the implications of the computerization ofthe labor market to see whether it can explain observed computer adoptionpatterns and (long-term) changes in the wage structure. Evidence from empiricalmicro studies turns out to be inconsistent with macro studies...

This paper develops a framework to understand the role of interpersonal interactions in thelabor market including task assignment and wages. Effective interpersonal interactionsinvolve caring, to establish cooperation, and at the same time directness, to communicate inan unambiguous way. The...

This paper demonstrates gender differences in risk aversion and ambiguityaversion. It also contributes to a growing literature relating economic preferenceparameters to psychological measures by asking whether variations in preferenceparameters among persons, and in particular across genders,...

AbstractThis paper examines whether noncognitive skills — measures both by personality traits andeconomic preference parameters — influence cognitive tests performance. The basic idea isthat noncognitive skills might affect the effort people put into a test to obtain good results. We...