Over the past two decades, researchers have shown a growing interest in the role of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) – children's confrontation with maltreatment and household dysfunction – in shaping lifetime opportunities. However, this is the first study to quantify the economic...

Over the past two decades, researchers have shown a growing interest in the role of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) - children's confrontation with maltreatment and household dysfunction - in shaping lifetime opportunities. However, this is the first study to quantify the economic penalties...

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...

Who is most likely to change their risk preferences over the lifecourse? Using German nationally representative survey data and methods to separate age from cohort effects, we estimate the lifecycle patterns in the socioeconomic gradient of self-reported risk preferences. Tolerance to risk drops...

Who is most likely to change their risk preferences over the lifecourse? Using German nationally representative survey data and methods to separate age from cohort effects, we estimate the lifecycle patterns in the socioeconomic gradient of self-reported risk preferences. Tolerance to risk drops...

Empirical evidence from the psychology literature suggests that reactions towards health shocks depend strongly on the personality trait of locus of control, which is usually unobservable to the analyst. In this paper, the role of this discrete heterogeneity in shaping the effects of health...

Life skills, sometimes referred to as noncognitive skills or personality traits (e.g. conscientiousness or locus of control-the belief to influence events and their outcomes), affect labor market productivity. Policy makers and academics are thus exploring whether such skills should be taught at...