Essays in Applied Microeconomics: Non-Monetary Incentives, Skill Formation, and Work Preferences

This dissertation consists of three separate studies in empirical microeconomics. The three chapters presented in this book study how preferences for different job attributes form, how and why workers respond to non-monetary incentives, and how the nature of the educational environment shapes the cognitive and non-cognitive skills of children. The findings of this thesis speak to a growing interest in using behavioral and experimental methods to learn how the labor market outcomes of individuals are influenced by their preferences and personality traits, and to measure the efficiency of lower-powered incentives