Two Economists' Musings on the Stability of Locus of Control

By D. Cobb-Clark, S. Schurer. Social Science Research Network, 2011

360 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Empirical studies of the role of non-cognitive skills in driving economic behavior often rely heavily on the assumption that these skills are stable over the relevant time frame. We analyze the change in a specific non-cognitive skill, i.e. locus of control, in order to directly assess the validity of this assumption. We find that short- and medium-run changes in locus of control are rather modest on average, are concentrated among the young or very old, do not appear to be related to the demographic, labor market, and health events that individuals experience, and are unlikely to be economically meaningful. Still, there is no evidence that locus of control is truly time-invariant implying that the use of lagged measures results in an errors-in-variables problem that could downward bias the estimated wage return to locus of control by as much as 50 percent. Those researchers wishing to analyze the economic consequences of non-cognitive skills should consider (i) restricting their analysis to the working-age population for whom there is little evidence of systematic change in skill levels and (ii) accounting for error in the skill measures they employ.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, General Health Professions, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b91859a1d30b76bb8f15a5c65f685077b0d42c28

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Citations in the corpus

Unobservable, but unimportant? The relevance of usually unobserved variables for the evaluation of labor market policies☆ (2017, result): “, personality traits (see e.g. Heineck and Anger, 2010; Cobb-Clark and Schurer, 2013) and intergenerational variables, and can therefore be expected to influence the labor market outcomes of interest in similar ways as the employment and earning histories.”
Locus of Control and Savings (2016, methodology): “…and was 6There is a rapidly growing literature that links locus of control to numerous economic outcomes including earnings, unemployment, educational attainment, life satisfaction, and investments in health (see Cobb-Clark & Schurer, 2013; Cobb-Clark et al., 2014, and the references therein).”
Personality, IQ, and Lifetime Earnings (2018, background): “Cobb-Clark and Schurer (2013) show that ocus of Control, another socio-emotional skill, does not change systemtically with labor market or health events.”
Household Finances and the 'Big Five' Personality Traits (2014, neutral): “It should be acknowledged, however, that the issue of such stability does remain an area of debate in the psychology literature (Cobb-Clark and Schurer, 2011a).”
Locus of control and the labor market (2015, neutral): “In working-age populations, there is evidence that locus of control, like the Big Five, is stable (see Specht 2011, 2013; Cobb-Clark and Schurer 2012, 2013).”
Locus of Control and Job Search Strategies (2010, neutral): “Although changes in locus of control are rather modest over the short and medium run, Cobb-Clark and Schurer (2013) find that the use of lagged locus of control measures nonetheless results in a substantial errors-in-variables individuals approximately two months after entry into unemployment, we…”
The higher returns to formal education for entrepreneurs versus employees (2012, neutral): “In the psychological literature, there is abundant evidence that locus of control is a fundamental and stable personality trait, with clear behavioral consequences (Boone and De Brabander 1993; Boone et al. 2005; Cobb-Clark and Schurer 2011).”
Cognitive skills, non-cognitive skills, and family background: evidence from sibling correlations (2016, neutral): “23This is in line with findings of Cobb-Clark and Schurer (2012, 2013) who showed that personality traits and locus of control are relatively stable within 4-year windows for all adult age groups.”
The lifetime earnings premia of different majors: Correcting for selection based on cognitive, noncognitive, and unobserved factors (2014, background): “5 percentage points faster than in ation Ehrenberg (2012), graduating high school seniors face the prospect of taking on substantial student loan debt only to be confronted with an uncertain and turbulent labor market after graduating from college. It is therefore more important than ever for studen”