Borghans, Lex, Angela Lee Duckworth, James J. Heckman, and Bas ter Weel. 2008. “The Economics and Psychology of Personality Traits.” Journal of Human Resources 43(4): 972–1059.
This paper explores the interface between personality psychology and economics. We examine the predictive power of personality and the stability of personality traits over the life cycle. We develop simple analytical frameworks for interpreting the evidence in personality psychology and suggest promising avenues for future research.
Lex Borghans is a professor of labor economics and social policy at Maastricht University and the Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA). Angela L. Duckworth is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. James J. Heckman is the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor in Economics, the College and the Harris School of Public Policy Studies; Director of the Economics Research Center, University of Chicago; Director of the Center for Social Program Evaluation, Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies; senior fellow of the American Bar Foundation; Professor of Science and Society at University College Dublin; and Cowles Foundation Distinguished Visiting Professor, Yale University. Bas ter Weel is department head at the Department of International Economics with the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Research and Senior researcher with UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University. Duckworth’s work is supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. Heckman’s work is supported by NIH R01-HD043411, and grants from the American Bar Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, the Partnership for America’s Economic Success, and the J.B. Pritzker Consortium on Early Childhood Development. Ter Weel’s work was supported by a research grant of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (grant 014-43-711). Chris Hsee gave us very useful advice at an early stage. We are grateful to Arianna Zanolini for helpful comments and research assistance. We have received very helpful comments on various versions of this draft from Gary Becker, Dan Benjamin, Dan Black, Ken Bollen, Sam Bowles, Frances Campbell, Flavio Cunha, John Dagsvik, Michael Daly, Liam Delany, Kevin Denny, Thomas Dohmen, Greg Duncan, Armin Falk, James Flynn, Linda Gottfredson, Lars Hansen, Joop Hartog, Moshe Hoffman, Bob Hogan, Nathan Kuncel, John List, Lena Malofeeva, Kenneth McKenzie, Kevin Murphy, Frank Norman, David Olds, Friedhelm Pfeiffer, Bernard Van Praag, Elizabeth Pungello, Howard Rachlin, C. Cybele Raver, Bill Revelle, Brent Roberts, Carol Ryff, Larry Schweinhart, Jesse Shapiro, Rebecca Shiner, Burt Singer, Richard Suzman, Harald Uhlig, Sergio Urzua, Gert Wagner, Herb Walberg, and participants in the Applications Workshop at the University of Chicago, and workshops at Iowa State University, Brown University, University College Dublin, and Washington State University. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and not necessarily of the funders or individuals listed here. The data used in his article can be obtained beginning May 2009 through April 2012 from Lex Borghans, Department of Economics, PO Box 616, 6200 MD, the Netherlands, lex.borghans@algec.unimaas.nl.