IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lev/wrkpap/wp_443.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Personality and Earnings

Author

Listed:
  • Kaye K. W. Lee

Abstract

This paper studies personality as a potential explanation for wage differentials between apparently similar workers. This follows initial studies by Jencks (1979) that suggest that certain personality traits, such as industriousness and leadership, have an impact on earnings. The paper aims to provide a theoretical framework within which these effects may be analyzed. The study begins by outlining four issues as a backdrop to the model: rationality, the industry, firms, and workers. A crucial factor to the model is the memeÑa mental gene that affects personality. Taking these four factors into consideration, the Contested Exchange model from Bowles and Gintis (1990) is used. Then, it is adapted to study memetic effects on the wage rate. This is followed by an analysis of how memes may affect personality and thus earnings. The issues that require further study and resolution are 1) which traits create wage differentials, and 2) two-way causality: does personality affect the wage, or does a wage premium become an incentive for a person to adopt new memes?

Suggested Citation

  • Kaye K. W. Lee, 2006. "Personality and Earnings," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_443, Levy Economics Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_443
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_443.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lerner, Abba P, 1972. "The Economics and Politics of Consumer Sovereignty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(2), pages 258-266, May.
    2. Markus Jäntti & Eva Österbacka & Oddbjörn Raaum & Tor Eriksson & Anders Björklund, 2002. "Brother correlations in earnings in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden compared to the United States," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(4), pages 757-772.
    3. Herbert Gintis & Samuel Bowles & Melissa Osborne, 2001. "Incentive-Enhancing Preferences: Personality, Behavior, and Earnings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 155-158, May.
    4. Samuel Bowles & Herbert Gintis, 1990. "Contested Exchange: New Microfoundations for the Political Economy of Capitalism," Politics & Society, , vol. 18(2), pages 165-222, June.
    5. Herbert A. Simon, 1955. "A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 69(1), pages 99-118.
    6. Cecilia Chaing & Lindsay McSweeney, 2010. "A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice," CPI Journal, Competition Policy International, vol. 6.
    7. Alan B. Krueger & Lawrence H. Summers, 1986. "Reflections on the Inter-Industry Wage Structure," NBER Working Papers 1968, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Lawrence F. Katz & Lawrence H. Summers, 1989. "Industry Rents: Evidence and Implications," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 20(1989 Micr), pages 209-290.
    9. Kathleen R. Conner & C. K. Prahalad, 1996. "A Resource-Based Theory of the Firm: Knowledge Versus Opportunism," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 7(5), pages 477-501, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kevin Denny & Wen Zhang, 2010. "In praise of ambidexterity: How a continuum of handedness predicts social adjustment," Working Papers 201004, School of Economics, University College Dublin.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. da Silveira, Jaylson Jair & Lima, Gilberto Tadeu, 2021. "Wage inequality as a source of endogenous macroeconomic fluctuations," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 35-52.
    2. Eduardo Monte Jorge Hey Martins & Jaylson Jair da Silveira & Gilberto Tadeu Lima, 2021. "Heterogeneity in the extraction of labor from labor power and persistence of wage inequality," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(2), pages 260-285, May.
    3. Westerhoff, Frank H. & Dieci, Roberto, 2006. "The effectiveness of Keynes-Tobin transaction taxes when heterogeneous agents can trade in different markets: A behavioral finance approach," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 293-322, February.
    4. Hibbs, Douglas A, Jr, 2000. "Bread and Peace Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 104(1-2), pages 149-180, July.
    5. Pinelopi K. Goldberg & Nina Pavcnik, 2001. "Trade Protection and Wages: Evidence from the Colombian Trade Reforms," NBER Working Papers 8575, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Pursey Heugens & J. Oosterhout & Muel Kaptein, 2006. "Foundations and Applications for Contractualist Business Ethics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 68(3), pages 211-228, October.
    7. Sara Amoroso & Peter M. Kort & Bertrand Melenberg & Joseph Plasmans & Mark Vancauteren, 2010. "Firm Level Productivity under Imperfect Competition in Output and Labor Markets," CESifo Working Paper Series 3082, CESifo.
    8. Veronique Genre & Karsten Kohn & Daphne Momferatou, 2011. "Understanding inter-industry wage structures in the euro area," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(11), pages 1299-1313.
    9. Emiliano Santoro, 2006. "Macroeconomic fluctuations and the firms' rate of growth distribution: evidence from UK and US quoted companies," Department of Economics Working Papers 0606, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    10. Piotti, Geny, 2007. "Why do companies relocate? The German discourse on relocation," MPIfG Discussion Paper 07/14, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    11. Michael Makowsky, 2006. "An Agent-Based Model of Mortality Shocks, Intergenerational Effects, and Urban Crime," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 9(2), pages 1-7.
    12. Attanasio, Orazio & Goldberg, Pinelopi K. & Pavcnik, Nina, 2004. "Trade reforms and wage inequality in Colombia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 331-366, August.
    13. George J. Borjas & Valerie A. Ramey, 2000. "Market Responses to Interindustry Wage Differentials," NBER Working Papers 7799, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Verme, Paolo, 2009. "Happiness, freedom and control," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 146-161, August.
    15. Robert Plasman & François Rycx & Ilan Tojerow, 2006. "Industry wage differentials, unobserved ability, and rent-sharing: evidence from matched employer-employee, 1992-2005," DULBEA Working Papers 06-14.RS, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    16. Marcin Dziubinski & Jaideep Roy, 2007. "Endogenous Selection of Aspiring and Rational rules in Coordination Games," CEDI Discussion Paper Series 07-14, Centre for Economic Development and Institutions(CEDI), Brunel University.
    17. Luigi Mittone, 1997. "The reduction of decision complexity: normative policies and the role of information," CEEL Working Papers 9701, Cognitive and Experimental Economics Laboratory, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    18. Kumaraswamy Velupillai, 2003. "Economics and the complexity vision: chimerical partners or elysian adventurers," Department of Economics Working Papers 0307, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    19. Alexandre Chirat & Ulysse Lojkine, 2024. "Three views on economic power," EconomiX Working Papers 2024-31, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    20. Richard Nelson & Davide Consoli, 2010. "An evolutionary theory of household consumption behavior," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 20(5), pages 665-687, October.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_443. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Elizabeth Dunn (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.levyinstitute.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.