Forschungsprojekt ::

Individualism and the Formation of Human Capital

Projektbeschreibung

We estimate how the cultural trait of individualism affects cognitive skills using a large international adult skill test. In an epidemiological approach, we exploit home-country variation in individualism of migrants within destination countries, eliminating cross-country differences in educational and labor-market institutions. Constructing a novel individualism measure at the personal level, a second approach ensures that individualism is not confounded by other country-of-origin characteristics. A third approach exploits within-country between-native variation. Consistently across the three approaches, one standard deviation in individualism is associated with about 0.3 standard deviations higher numeracy skills. Individualists also have larger skill gains over time.