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Title: Cognitive and Noncognitive Factors of Poverty
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Alatorre, Arnulfo C.
Cognitive and Noncognitive Factors of Poverty
M.A. Thesis, Department of Economics and Statistics, California State University, Los Angeles, 2014
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT)
Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Family Size; Human Capital; Income Level; Marriage; Parenthood; Poverty

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This thesis investigates the cognitive and noncognitive determinants of poverty and annual income in the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979 cohort. The empirical analysis uses a standard human capital function that accounts for noncognitive factors along with traditional measures of productivity such as education, work experience, ability, and age to determine the effect they have on yearly income and poverty status. Poverty status is defined according to the U.S. Census Bureau's definition. The study uses quantile regression at the 5th, 10th, 25th, 35th, 50th, 65th, 75th, 90th, and 95th percentiles to analyze income and uses probit regression to determine the probability of being in poverty. The results of the quantile regressions show that education, cognitive skills, work experience, time preference, reservation wage, marriage, and parenthood have different magnitudes and directions of effect along the continuum of the quantiles. The probit regression shows that personal relationship factors such as family size, childbirth before first marriage, family poverty status in 1980, spousal income, and human capital factors of productivity affect the cohort's probability of being in poverty.
Bibliography Citation
Alatorre, Arnulfo C. Cognitive and Noncognitive Factors of Poverty. M.A. Thesis, Department of Economics and Statistics, California State University, Los Angeles, 2014.