• Graduate program
  • Research
  • News
  • Events
    • Summer School
      • Climate Change
      • Gender in Society
      • Inequalities in Health and Healthcare
      • Business Data Science Summer School Program
      • Receive updates
    • Events Calendar
    • Events Archive
    • Tinbergen Institute Lectures
    • Conference: Consumer Search and Markets
    • Annual Tinbergen Institute Conference
  • Summer School
    • Climate Change
    • Gender in Society
    • Inequalities in Health and Healthcare
    • Business Data Science Summer School Program
    • Receive updates
  • Alumni
  • Magazine

Gonzalez-Jimenez, V. (2022). Social status and motivated beliefs Journal of Public Economics, 211:.

  • Journal
    Journal of Public Economics
View publication

This paper shows that social status determines economic achievement through a psychological mechanism. Specifically, social status influences the way individuals form beliefs about their abilities and these beliefs are, in turn, crucial for achievement. A theoretical framework formalizes this mechanism. Data from a cohort study and from two controlled experiments corroborate its existence and quantify its magnitude. This study highlights the role of social status in creating constraints that are internal to the individual and that have the potential to impair economic success.