Understanding the Correlation between Alzheimer’s Disease Polygenic Risk, Wealth, and the Composition of Wealth Holdings

Su H. Shin, Dean R. Lillard and Jay Bhattacharya

No 25526, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We investigate how the genetic risk of developing Alzheimer's Disease (AD) relates to saving behavior. Using nationally representative data from the 1992-2014 Health and Retirement Study (HRS), we find that genetic predisposition for AD correlates with, but is not causally related to older individuals’ wealth holdings. People with higher Alzheimer’s Disease polygenic risk score (PGS) hold roughly 9 percent more wealth in CDs (hands-off assets) and around 11 percent, 15 percent, and 7 percent less wealth in stocks, IRAs, and other financial assets (hands-on assets) respectively. We explore three hypotheses that could explain these correlations. We hypothesize that people with high risk of AD choose different portfolios because: (i) they know their polygenic risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementia, (ii) they have lower cognitive capacity, and (iii) the genome-wide association studies (GWAS) process that generated the Alzheimer’s Disease PGS failed to fully account for the aging process. Our extended model results do not support the first two hypotheses. Consistent with the third hypothesis, the interaction between age and the Alzheimer’s Disease PGS explains the correlation between genetic traits and asset holdings.

JEL-codes: D1 D8 I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age and nep-hea
Note: AG EH
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published as Su Hyun Shin & Dean R. Lillard & Jay Bhattacharya, 2019. "Understanding the correlation between Alzheimer’s Disease polygenic risk, wealth, and the composition of wealth holdings," Biodemography and Social Biology, vol 65(4), pages 323-350.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w25526.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25526

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w25526

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().