| Empirical studies on the acquisition and importance of productive skills to economic success have mainly focused on cognitive skills, as measured by aptitude and knowledge tests. This essay goes beyond cognitive skills and emphasizes the importance of non-cognitive skills.; In the first part of the essay, data on young men from the National Education Longitudinal Survey is utilized to determine the relation of education and labor market outcomes to childhood behavior. The main finding is that eighth grade behavior is of the same order of importance to earnings as eighth grade test scores. Moreover, childhood behavior is associated with earnings at all educational levels. By contrast, achievement test scores are only related to earnings for young men with postsecondary degrees. Furthermore, behavior is persistent. Although school and family characteristics do relate to behavior, these factors explain only a small part of behavior.; In the second part, the relationships of motivation to test scores are investigated. Plenty of inferences regarding test scores and economic outcomes are drawn from tests administered to surveys participants, in which no performance-based incentives are supplied. Thus, the issue of effort, or motivation, might be crucial to the interpretation of the empirical findings. To illustrate the problem the black-white test score gap is examined. Given that blacks score lower than whites on standardized tests, a common conclusion drawn is that blacks are less capable than whites. If test scores are produced by two inputs, human capital and effort, where effort is costly, it is possible that the root of the test score gap is lack of effort, and not lack of knowledge. This lack of effort on the part of minorities might be the result of either actual or perceived lack of future opportunities. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth supporting indirect evidence are provided. To directly investigate the effect of incentives on the black-white test score gap, an experiment was conducted. The experimental results, however, are inconclusive regarding the roots of the black-white test score gap. |
