The impact of long-run macroeconomic experiences on personality

Nathanaël Vellekoop

No 142, SAFE Working Paper Series from Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE

Abstract: Using two datasets containing demographically representative samples of the Dutch population, I study how lifetime experiences of aggregate labor market conditions affect personality. Three sets of findings are reported. First, experienced aggregate unemployment is negatively correlated with the levels of all Big Five personality traits, except for conscientiousness (no significant correlation). Second, in panel data models with individual fixed effects I find that changes in experienced aggregate unemployment cause changes in emotional stability and agreeableness for men, and conscientiousness for women. The correlation is positive, and effects are economically large. Thirdly, I report suggestive evidence that the main driver is experienced aggregate unemployment, instead of other macroeconomic variables as experienced GDP, stock market returns or inflation. Taken together, these findings suggest that changes in Big Five personality traits are systematically related to experienced aggregate labor market conditions.

Keywords: personality traits; Big Five; locus of control; labor market; unemployment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D01 D12 E23 E32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac, nep-neu and nep-sog
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:safewp:142

DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.2835432

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