Family Background, Self-Confidence and Economic Outcomes

Autor/inn/en	Filippin, Antonio; Paccagnella, Marco
Titel	Family Background, Self-Confidence and Economic Outcomes
Quelle	In: Economics of Education Review, 31 (2012) 5, S.824-834 (11 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0272-7757
DOI	10.1016/j.econedurev.2012.06.002
Schlagwörter	Achievement Gap; Cognitive Tests; Human Capital; Family Characteristics; Beliefs; Outcomes of Education; Learning Processes; Equal Education; Economics; Outcome Measures; Socioeconomic Background; Correlation; Educational Policy; Educational Attainment; Income; Self Concept Measures; Self Esteem; Ability; Underachievement; Socioeconomic Status + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Kognitiver Fähigkeitstest; Humankapital; Belief; Glaube; Lernleistung; Schulerfolg; Learning process; Lernprozess; Volkswirtschaftslehre; Sozioökonomische Lage; Korrelation; Politics of education; Bildungspolitik; Bildungsabschluss; Bildungsgut; Einkommen; Self-esteem; Selbstaufmerksamkeit; Fähigkeit; Fertigkeit; Performance deficiency; Leistungsschwäche; Socio-economic status; Sozioökonomischer Status
Abstract	In this paper we analyze the role played by self-confidence, modeled as beliefs about one's ability, in shaping task choices. We propose a model in which fully rational agents exploit all the available information to update their beliefs using Bayes' rule, eventually learning their true type. We show that when the learning process does not converge quickly to the true ability level, small differences in initial confidence can result in diverging patterns of human capital accumulation between otherwise identical individuals. If differences in self-confidence are correlated with socio-economic background (as a large body of empirical literature suggests), self-confidence can be a channel through which education and earning inequalities perpetuate across generations. Our theory suggests that cognitive tests should take place as early as possible, in order to avoid that systematic differences in self-confidence among equally talented people lead to the emergence of gaps in the accumulation of human capital. (Contains 1 table and 4 figures.) (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10