 What do you think? Success: is it luck or is it hard work?Joseph Daniels and Miao Wang () Applied Economics Letters, 2019, vol. 26, issue 21, 1734-1738 Abstract: This paper explores how individual characteristics and national-level variables affect perceptions toward whether individual success depends on luck and connections or hard work. Drawing on five waves of World Values Survey (WVS) data on more than 175,000 respondents in 85 countries, we find that demographic factors and socioeconomic variables such as age, gender, income, and employment status are strongly associated with an individual’s view on luck versus hard work. For example, women are more likely to view luck as the primary factor determining success in the long run. In addition, individuals in countries with better macroeconomic conditions measured by GDP per capita and its growth rate seem to associate success more with luck than with hard work compared to individuals in other countries. Our results from multilevel ordered logistic regressions also suggest that differences in personal traits account for approximately 90% of the variations in respondents’ perceptions observed in our sample. The remaining 10% is due to differences in various country-level traits other than our GDP controls. Date: 2019 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:26:y:2019:i:21:p:1734-1738 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2019.1593930 Access Statistics for this article Applied Economics Letters is currently edited by Anita Phillips More articles in Applied Economics Letters from Taylor & Francis Journals |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.