Scholarly Comments on Academic Economics

For Clark’s Consideration: Genotypic Population Stratification and Non-Additive Genetic Effects

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Abstract

In his book, To Have and Have Not: The Determinants of Social Status in England, 1600-2026, Gregory Clark argues that a simple model with genetic transmission and assortative mating is sufficient to explain why socio-economic outcomes tend to run in families. Additionally, he provides a collection of arguments against the idea that environmental effects are important contributors to the similarities in outcomes he documents within extended families. Here, I raise two criticisms of Clark’s explanatory framework, and for each criticism suggest ways to mitigate it without introducing environmental effects. First, I criticize the framework for requiring that mates are highly correlated on unobserved traits that are highly heritable and highly genetically correlated with the outcome to be explained. I here suggest allowing for genotypic population stratification. Second, I criticize the framework for underestimating the importance of zygosity for the similarity of twins. As a fix for this, I suggest incorporating non-additive genetic effects.

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Volume (Issue)
Pages
545–553
Published
JEL classification
D63, I24, I30, J12, J62, N33, N34
Keywords
assortative mating; education; socioeconomic status; heritability; population stratification
Downloads
225 article downloads
345 complete issue downloads
Total: 570

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