Individual and Geographical Variation in Economic Preferences

This article explores individual and geographical variation in economic preferences. For this purpose, we introduce a novel dataset comprising incentivized preference measures and survey data from nearly 6,000 Finnish individuals aged from 15 to 30 years. We merge these data with respondents’ birth records, full medical histories, and a broad range of administrative records detailing educational and labor market outcomes for respondents and their family members. Using an extensive set of candidate variables included in the dataset, we characterize developmental and demographic correlates of preferences. At the individual level, the data reveal several robust relationships between individuals’ early health endowment and preferences. For example, we find that individuals’ competitiveness tends to vary by their birth weight, while time preferences are linked to exposure to smoking in utero. At the geographical level, the data connect regional variation in preferences with several measures of economic development and health. We show that selection into internal migration is a major driver of the geographical polarization of economic preferences.