Economics Seminar Economics (ESE) - 2023/2024

Interviene: Mirco Tonin, Università di Bolzano

Titolo: Determinants of Self-Selection into Health Professions (Alessandro Fedele, Mirco Tonin, Daniel Wiesen)

Abstract: In this paper, we investigate the determinants of self-selection into health professions, such as medicine or nursing. We compare a sample of applicants to medical and healthcare schools to a representative sample of young adults along several dimensions. We then rely on machine learning methods to select the best determinants. We find that higher cognitive ability, altruism, and personality traits such as conscientiousness and neuroticism increase the likelihood to apply to medical or nursing schools. Individuals stating with a high extrinsic motivations apply to a significantly lesser extent. Our results provide clear evidence for self-selection of able and altruistic individuals into the health sector.