Many studies have found a strong association between economic outcomes of nations and their performance on international cognitive tests. This association is often interpreted as evidence for the importance of cognitive skills for economic growth. However, noncognitive skills, such as motivation...

We use the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) data to construct several measures of non-cognitive skills and to analyze the relationship between non-cognitive skills and earnings. We construct measures for non-cognitive skills based on previous research in...

Single parenthood is on the rise worldwide. While acceptance of single-parent households is increasing, some authors point out that single-parent families still suffer from negative societal attitudes compared to heterosexual two-parent families, while also being among the most vulnerable groups...

Single parenthood is on the rise everywhere in the world. While previous studies show that acceptance of single-parent households is increasing, some authors point out that single-parent families are often considered as a reality rather than as an ideal. This circumstance may cause negative...

We develop a formal model of the internal game between the leader and the factions of a party, to study the effect of party leadership on electoral success. Factions are of interest or of principle. The probability of winning an election is increasing in the leader's charisma, but also in party...

This paper builds a dynamic theory of secessions, conflictual or peaceful, analyzing the forward looking interaction between groups in a country. The proposed framework allows us to jointly address several key stylized facts on secession, and generates several novel predictions. We find that if...

In many situations, agents take risks by choosing an action that increases their performance immediately, but that potentially leads to a large loss. The current paper studies how such risk-taking behavior depends on the level of competition that the agents face. We study a tournament model and...

Gender differences in overconfidence have been extensively documented in the empirical literature, but the implications for labor market outcomes are not well understood. In this paper, we analyze how men's relatively higher overconfidence, combined with competitive job incentives, affects...

In competitive settings, disparities in player strength are common. It is intuitively unclear whether a stronger player would opt for larger or smaller effort compared to weaker players. Larger effort could leverage their strength, while lower effort might be justified by their higher...

We analyze the interaction of explicit and implicit contracts in a model with selfish and fair principals. Fair principals are willing to honor implicit agreements, whereas selfish principals are not. Principals are privately informed about their types. We investigate a separating equilibrium in...