Making it Right? Social Norms, Handwriting and Human Capital
| Autor: | Raphael Guber |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
Counterfactual thinking
Selection bias Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management Economics and Econometrics Labour economics media_common.quotation_subject Differential (mechanical device) Cognition Left handedness Human capital language.human_language German Handwriting Economics language Early childhood intervention Cognitive skill Early childhood Psychology media_common Cognitive psychology |
| Zdroj: | SSRN Electronic Journal. |
| ISSN: | 1556-5068 |
| DOI: | 10.2139/ssrn.2879384 |
| Popis: | Can early childhood interventions compensate for innate deficits? In this paper, I study the forced right-hand writing of left-handed children (“switching”). While previous literature has found that, due to innate cognitive deficits, left-handers obtain less human capital and lower wages than right-handers, I find that switched left-handers perform equally well or even better in the labor market than right-handers. Only non-switched left-handers exhibit the deficits of left-handers found in earlier studies. To address potential selection bias, I employ a difference- in-difference approach, where I exploit the rapid decline of switching across cohorts. Cohort trends of the outcome variables of right-handers, who were never switched, are used as a counterfactual for left-handers. Using rich data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), I show that the observed differences in outcomes occur due to differential human capital accumulation, rather than cognitive or non-cognitive skills. My findings are consistent with switching compensating for the innate deficits of left-handers. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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