The Returns to Personality Traits Across the Wage Distribution

Abstract

This paper investigates variation in the wage effects of personality traits across the wage distribution. I expect increasing magnitudes of the effects of personality traits on wages for high- compared to low-wage employees and test this hypothesis using unconditional quantile regressions with data from Germany, the UK, and Australia. The findings show increasing magnitudes of the effects of especially agreeableness, neuroticism and risk taking across the wage distribution and provide further evidence for the importance of non-cognitive skills for wages.