Economists and social scientists have debated the relative importance of nature (one’s genes) and nurture (one’s environment) for decades, if not centuries. This debate can now be informed by the ready availability of genetic data in a growing number of social science datasets. This paper explores the potential uses of genetic data in economics, with … Read more
The Economics and Econometrics of Gene-Environment Interplay
Deepening our understanding on the ways in which social origins shape our lives
Family background influences our lives in multiple ways: from genes to work-life connections, the role that parents can play in their children’s lives is almost ubiquitous. Yet these relationships are far from deterministic. Institutional contexts shape the strength and manner in which the influences take place. Even the way that genes shape our lives depends … Read more
Genetic advantage and equality of opportunity in education: Two definitions, and an empirical application
Research on equality of opportunity has long acknowledged that genetic factors play a role in determining our level of success. But if we want to measure equality of opportunity, should we treat innate advantages as fair or unfair? And how would each of these two different perspectives affect researchers’ outcomes when they try to measure … Read more
DIAL Policy Brief No. 2 ‘Towards a socially mobile Europe: What can policymakers learn from Dynamics of Inequality Across the Life-course (DIAL) research?’
There are a number of key European policy agendas related to social mobility on which the DIAL research can shed light. This policy brief gives an overview of findings from DIAL projects in this area. Key findings: Educational opportunity is the most powerful tool in improving the life chances of those born into disadvantaged families. … Read more
Socioeconomic Background and Gene–Environment Interplay in Social Stratification across the Early Life Course
This study finds that genetic inheritance has more influence than the shared social environment alone in perpetuating social inequalities. However, the importance of genes varies according family environment: genetic influences are stronger among those growing up in the most advantaged families. The researchers studied 6,500 pairs of twins born in Finland between 1975 and 1986. They used … Read more
A decade of research on the genetics of entrepreneurship: a review and view ahead
Studies analyzing the heritability of entrepreneurship indicate that explanations for why people engage in entrepreneurship that ignore genes are incomplete. However, despite promises that were solidly backed up with ex ante power calculations, attempts to identify specific genetic variants underlying the heritable variation in entrepreneurship have until now been unsuccessful. We describe the methodological issues … Read more
Stop Meta-Analyzing, Start Instrumenting: Maximizing the Predictive Power of Polygenic Scores
Polygenic scores have become the workhorse for empirical analyses in social-science genetics. Because a polygenic score is constructed using the results of finite-sample Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWASs), it is a noisy approximation of the true latent genetic predisposition to a certain trait. The conventional way of boosting the predictive power of polygenic scores is to … Read more
Investigating the genetic architecture of noncognitive skills using GWAS-by-subtraction
Little is known about the genetic architecture of traits affecting educational attainment other than cognitive ability. We used genomic structural equation modeling and prior genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of educational attainment (n = 1,131,881) and cognitive test performance (n = 257,841) to estimate SNP associations with educational attainment variation that is independent of cognitive ability. … Read more
Dynamic complementarity in skill production: Evidence from genetic endowments and birth order
This study looks at how nature and nurture interact in influencing individuals academic attainment, and finds support for the theory that early life parental inputs increase later gains – especially in those children who have genetic advantages. The researchers used data on a sample of 15,000 siblings, whose genetic and demographic information is stored in … Read more
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Earnings in Later-Life Self-Employment
It has been suggested that individuals with ADHD are likely to go into self-employment, where a flair for entrepreneurship may improve their prospects. But this study suggests the choice of self-employment may not always be a positive one for those with this condition. This paper asks two questions: Are those with a genetic predisposition to … Read more