IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ivi/wpasad/2016-04.html

Handedness, Ability, Earnings and Risk. Evidence from the Lab

Author

Listed:
  • Marcello Sartarelli

    (Dpto. Fundamentos del Análisis Económico)

Abstract

The relationship between handedness, ability and, in addition, their joint role in explaining earnings and decisions under risk is studied experimentally to shed new light on the mechanisms behind the mixed evidence in survey data. Data on 432 under graduate students show that left-handed (L) do not obtain a significantly different Cognitive Reflection Test score relative to others nor different payoffs in a stylized labour market with agents working for principals and being paid for exerting costly effort, a proxy for earnings. In addition, they are not significantly more risk averse. In partial contrast, their self-reported achievement at university tends to be significantly higher and driven by females although weakly for some specifications. Finally, when looking at personality traits, measured using the Big Five test, L are significantly more agreeable, showing higher preferences for cooperation, and also tend to be more extroverted, in particular more sociable.

Suggested Citation

  • Marcello Sartarelli, 2016. "Handedness, Ability, Earnings and Risk. Evidence from the Lab," Working Papers. Serie AD 2016-04, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    • Handle: RePEc:ivi:wpasad:2016-04
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ivie.es/downloads/docs/wpasad/wpasad-2016-04.pdf
    File Function: Fisrt version / Primera version, 2016
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kenneth R. MacCrimmon & Donald A. Wehrung, 1990. "Characteristics of Risk Taking Executives," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(4), pages 422-435, April.
    2. Heckman, James J. & Kautz, Tim, 2012. "Hard evidence on soft skills," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 451-464.
    3. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Kujal, Praveen & Lenkei, Balint, 2019. "Cognitive reflection test: Whom, how, when," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    4. Christopher S. Ruebeck & Joseph E. Harrington, Jr & Robert Moffitt, 1997. "Handedness and Earnings," Economics Working Paper Archive 533, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics, revised Jun 2004.
    5. Cueva, Carlos & Iturbe-Ormaetxe, Iñigo & Mata-Pérez, Esther & Ponti, Giovanni & Sartarelli, Marcello & Yu, Haihan & Zhukova, Vita, 2016. "Cognitive (ir)reflection: New experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 81-93.
    6. Maria Cubel & Ana Nuevo‐Chiquero & Santiago Sanchez‐Pages & Marian Vidal‐Fernandez, 2016. "Do Personality Traits Affect Productivity? Evidence from the Laboratory," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(592), pages 654-681, May.
    7. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde & Jürgen Schupp & Gert G. Wagner, 2011. "Individual Risk Attitudes: Measurement, Determinants, And Behavioral Consequences," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 522-550, June.
    8. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    9. David W. Johnston & Michael E. R. Nicholls & Manisha Shah & Michael A. Shields, 2013. "Handedness, health and cognitive development: evidence from children in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 176(4), pages 841-860, October.
    10. Ben Greiner, 2004. "The Online Recruitment System ORSEE 2.0 - A Guide for the Organization of Experiments in Economics," Working Paper Series in Economics 10, University of Cologne, Department of Economics.
    11. Burks, Stephen V. & Lewis, Connor & Kivi, Paul & Wiener, Amanda & Anderson, Jon E. & Götte, Lorenz & DeYoung, Colin G. & Rustichini, Aldo, 2014. "Moving Ahead by Thinking Backwards: Cognitive Skills, Personality, and Economic Preferences in Collegiate Success," IZA Discussion Papers 7952, IZA Network @ LISER.
    12. Kevin Denny & Vincent O’ Sullivan, 2007. "The Economic Consequences of Being Left-Handed: Some Sinister Results," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(2).
    13. Guiso, Luigi & Jappelli, Tullio & Pistaferri, Luigi, 2002. "An Empirical Analysis of Earnings and Employment Risk," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(2), pages 241-253, April.
    14. Cubel, Maria & Nuevo-Chiquero, Ana & Sanchez-Pages, Santiago & Vidal-Fernandez, Marian, 2014. "Do Personality Traits Affect Productivity? Evidence from the Lab," IZA Discussion Papers 8308, IZA Network @ LISER.
    15. Joshua Goodman, 2014. "The Wages of Sinistrality: Handedness, Brain Structure, and Human Capital Accumulation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(4), pages 193-212, Fall.
    16. Johnston, David W. & Shah, Manisha & Shields, Michael A., 2007. "Handedness, Time Use and Early Childhood Development," IZA Discussion Papers 2752, IZA Network @ LISER.
    17. Shane Frederick, 2005. "Cognitive Reflection and Decision Making," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 25-42, Fall.
    18. Ben Greiner, 2004. "The Online Recruitment System ORSEE - A Guide for the Organization of Experiments in Economics," Papers on Strategic Interaction 2003-10, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group.
    19. Rustichini, Aldo & DeYoung, Colin G. & Anderson, Jon E. & Burks, Stephen V., 2012. "Toward the Integration of Personality Theory and Decision Theory in the Explanation of Economic and Health Behavior," IZA Discussion Papers 6750, IZA Network @ LISER.
    20. Guiso, Luigi & Pagel, Michaela, 2004. "The Role of Risk Aversion in Predicting Individual Behaviours," CEPR Discussion Papers 4591, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    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. Marcello Sartarelli, 2016. "Handedness, Earnings, Ability and Personality. Evidence from the Lab," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(10), pages 1-17, October.
    2. Lau Lilleholt, 2019. "Cognitive ability and risk aversion: A systematic review and meta analysis," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 14(3), pages 234-279, May.

    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. Marcello Sartarelli, 2016. "Handedness, Earnings, Ability and Personality. Evidence from the Lab," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(10), pages 1-17, October.
    2. Guber, Raphael, 2019. "Making it right? Social norms, handwriting and human capital," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 44-57.
    3. Riedel, Nadine & Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah, 2013. "Asymmetric obligations," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 67-80.
    4. Julius Pahlke & Sebastian Strasser & Ferdinand Vieider, 2015. "Responsibility effects in decision making under risk," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 125-146, October.
    5. Mara Ewers & Florian Zimmermann, 2015. "Image And Misreporting," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 363-380, April.
    6. Bazart, C. & Bonein, A., 2014. "Reciprocal relationships in tax compliance decisions," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 83-102.
    7. Dirk-Jan Janssen & Sascha Füllbrunn & Utz Weitzel, 2019. "Individual speculative behavior and overpricing in experimental asset markets," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(3), pages 653-675, September.
    8. Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah & Trieu, Chi & Willrodt, Jana, 2020. "Perceived fairness and consequences of affirmative action policies," DICE Discussion Papers 338, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    9. Theresa Treffers & Philipp D. Koellinger & Arnold Picot, 2016. "Do Affective States Influence Risk Preferences?," Schmalenbach Business Review, Springer;Schmalenbach-Gesellschaft, vol. 17(3), pages 309-335, December.
    10. Alexander L. Brown & Ajalavat Viriyavipart & Xiaoyuan Wang, 2014. "Exploding Offers with Experimental Consumer Goods," Working Papers 20141006-001, Texas A&M University, Department of Economics.
    11. Taylor, Matthew P., 2020. "Heterogeneous motivation and cognitive ability in the lab," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    12. Ciril Bosch-Rosa & Thomas Meissner & Antoni Bosch-Domènech, 2018. "Cognitive bubbles," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(1), pages 132-153, March.
    13. Janssen, Dirk-Jan & Weitzel, Utz & Füllbrunn, Sascha, 2015. "Speculative Bubbles - An introduction and application of the Speculation Elicitation Task (SET)," MPRA Paper 63028, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Lawrence C. Y. Choo, 2014. "Trading Participation Rights to the “Red Hat Puzzle”. An Experiment," Discussion Papers 1408, University of Exeter, Department of Economics.
    15. Choo, Lawrence C.Y, 2014. "Trading Participation Rights to the Red Hat Puzzle. Will Markets allocate the rights for performing decision tasks to the more abled players?," MPRA Paper 55569, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Gian Luigi Albano & Angela Cipollone & Roberto Di Paolo & Giovanni Ponti & Marco Sparro, 2018. "Scoring Rules in Experimental Procurement," Working Papers. Serie AD 2018-02, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    17. Emma von Essen & Marieke Huysentruyt & Topi Miettinen, 2019. "Exploration in Teams and the Encouragement Effect: Theory and Evidence," Economics Working Papers 2019-10, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    18. Alexander L. Brown & Rodrigo A. Velez, 2014. "The costs and benefits of symmetry in common-ownership allocation problems," Working Papers 20141106-10001, Texas A&M University, Department of Economics.
    19. Sebastian J. Goerg & Sebastian Kube & Jonas Radbruch, 2019. "The Effectiveness of Incentive Schemes in the Presence of Implicit Effort Costs," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(9), pages 4063-4078, September.
    20. Thomas Buser, 2010. "Handedness predicts Social Preferences: Evidence connecting the Lab to the Field," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 10-119/3, Tinbergen Institute.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • D87 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Neuroeconomics

    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:ivi:wpasad:2016-04. 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: Departamento de Edición (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ievages.html .

    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.