Individualism, Human Capital Formation, and Labor Market Success

There is an ongoing debate about the economic effects of individualism. We establish that individualism leads to better educational and labor market outcomes. Using data from largest international adult skill assessment, we identify by exploiting variation between migrants at origin country, language, person level. Migrants more individualistic cultures have higher cognitive skills larger gains over time. They also invest in their life-cycle, as they acquire years schooling are likely participate education activities. In fact, important explaining formation than any other cultural trait has been emphasized previous literature. market, earn wages less often unemployed. show our results cannot be explained selective migration or omitted origin-country variables.