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
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
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
The Interplay between Maternal Smoking and Genes in Offspring Birth Weight
This paper looks at the relationships between genes, smoking, and birth weight. It finds that each additional daily cigarette smoked during pregnancy reduces birthweight by between 20 and 40 grams, regardless of the childs’s genetic predisposition. The researchers used information from a sample of 5000 mother-baby pairs in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and … 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
ADHD and later-life labor market outcomes in the United States
People at genetic risk of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) suffer negative effects on their employment, individual income and household wealth. But these can probably be mitigated by higher educational attainment, this paper finds. The researchers looked at a sample of approximately 9,000 individuals aged 50-65 who took part in the American Health and Retirement … Read more
Effect of Genetic Propensity for Obesity on Income and Wealth Through Educational Attainment
This paper shows that a genetic propensity to obesity affects women more than men in the labour market. The research draws on a representative sample of almost 6,000 Americans aged 50-65 and not yet retired from the US Health and Retirement Study. It looks at factors such as individual income, household wealth, health and retirement … Read more