Abstract
In this dissertation, I build upon the psychology research and use established psychological scales developed to characterize personality traits and cultural preferences of individuals to explain their economic outcomes. In the first chapter, I use the Rosenberg scale measuring the level of self-esteem (Rosenberg, 1965) and the Rotter scale measuring the level of self-control (Rotter, 1966) to characterize the noncognitive skills of 15 year old pupils.
In turn, I examine their effect on secondary school application choice. In the second and the third chapters, I focus on the concept of cultural values developed to study cross-country differences in culture (Schwartz, 1992) and use it to characterize the extent to which a given culture can be considered traditional.
Specifically, I examine the transmission of traditional values across generations and the role of traditional values on second-generation immigrants' female labor supply.