Cultural values and productivity (rooftops)

This paper estimates differences in human capital as country-of-origin specific labor productivity terms, in firm production functions, making it immune to wage discrimination concerns.  After accounting for wage and experience, estimated human capital varies by a factor of around 3 between the 90th and 10th percentile.  When I investigate which country-of-origin characteristics correlate most closely with human capital, cultural values are the only robust predictor.  This relationship persists among children of migrants.  Consistent with a plausible cultural mechanism, individuals whose origin place a high value on autonomy hold a comparative advantage in positions characterized by a low degree of routinization.

That is by Andreas Ek from Lund University, recently accepted to the Journal of Political Economy.  I do not currently see ungated versions of the paper.