Recovery Mode: Non-Cognitive Skills After the Storm

We analyze the very short-term causal impact of exposure to one of the most powerful storms ever recorded to strike land on locus of control, reciprocity, and risk preferences within a sample of 2,352 individuals in the Philippines. We find that people exhibit significantly lower external locus of control, reciprocity, and risk aversion after the shock. Our identification is based on field work that coincidentally started shortly before the typhoon and that continued thereafter. The short-term impact we document has not been observed previously, and we thus fill a gap in the emerging literature on the stability of non-cognitive skills.