IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mde/wpaper/0111.html

A General Equilibrium Theory of Occupational Choice under Optimistic Beliefs about Entrepreneurial Ability

Author

Listed:
  • Michele Dell'Era

    (National Bank of Slovakia)

  • Luca David Opromolla

    (Banco de Portugal)

  • Luis Santos-Pinto

    (Banco de Portugal)

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of optimism on occupational choice using a general equilibrium framework. The model shows that optimism has four main qualitative effects: it leads to a misallocation of talent, drives up input prices, raises the number of entrepreneurs, and makes entrepreneurs worse o . We calibrate the model to match U.S. manufacturing data. This allows us to make quantitative predictions regarding the impact of optimism on occupational choice, input prices, the returns to entrepreneurship,and output. The calibration shows that optimism can explain the empirical puzzle of the low mean returns to entrepreneurship compared to average wages.

Suggested Citation

  • Michele Dell'Era & Luca David Opromolla & Luis Santos-Pinto, 2018. "A General Equilibrium Theory of Occupational Choice under Optimistic Beliefs about Entrepreneurial Ability," GEE Papers 0111, Gabinete de Estratégia e Estudos, Ministério da Economia, revised Oct 2018.
    • Handle: RePEc:mde:wpaper:0111
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.gee.gov.pt//RePEc/WorkingPapers/GEE_PAPERS_111.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2018
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jan B. Engelmann & Maël Lebreton & Nahuel A. Salem-Garcia & Peter Schwardmann & Joël J. van der Weele, 2024. "Anticipatory Anxiety and Wishful Thinking," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(4), pages 926-960, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D50 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - General
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship

    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:mde:wpaper:0111. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Joana Almodovar (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/geegvpt.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.