Article in Journal
Patience and the North-South Divide in Student Achievement in Italy and the United States
Eric A. Hanushek, Lavinia Kinne, Pietro Sancassani, Ludger Woessmann
CESifo, Munich, 2024
EconPol Forum 25 (3), 53-56
CESifo, Munich, 2024
EconPol Forum 25 (3), 53-56
- Human capital theory recognizes that time preferences – patience – are important for skill investments
- We show how Facebook interests can be used to construct subnational measures of patience
- Differences in patience are closely related to regional student achievement in Italy and the United States
- They account for two-thirds of the achievement variation across Italian regions and one-third across US states
- The results lead to new perspectives on long-standing within-country disparities