We study how severe acute health shocks affect the probability of not working in the U. S. versus in Denmark. The results not only provide insight into how relative disease risk affects labor force participation at older ages, but also into how different types of health care and health insurance...

Socioeconomic outcomes of parents and their children are more correlated for sons than for daughters. This paper presents empirical evidence from Denmark that these gender differences result from different transmission mechanisms by separating the effects of parental education and income

Household heads are defined in many micro data sets and are usually male. This paper illustrates potential consequences of the common practice of using only the household head's characteristics in empirical research

Locus of control, that is, people's perception of how much influence they have over their lives, is an important predictor for economic outcomes – earnings, health, and education, to name a few. This paper uses difference-in-differences analysis to investigate the importance of the...

Unemployment results in lower levels of cognitive skills and has long-term effects on health and economic well-being. In this paper, I show that unemployment also has negative effects on noncognitive skills, at least in the short term. Using a sample of Germans born between 1945 and 1995, I...

The noncognitive skill of conscientiousness has been linked to favorable labor market and health outcomes. But how is conscientiousness affected by events that happen in childhood? We investigate the effects of negative parental selection and economic and social upheaval on conscientiousness in...

Standard economic models which focus on pecuniary payoffs cannot explain why there are highly able individuals who choose careers with low pecuniary returns. Therefore, financial incentives are unlikely to be effective in influencing career choices of these individuals. Based on Akerlof and...