Improvements and Future Challenges in the Field of Genetically Sensitive Sample Designs

Frank M. Spinath
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Joachim Merz

No 45, RatSWD Working Papers from German Data Forum (RatSWD)

Abstract: Understanding the sources of individual differences beyond social and economic effects has become a research area of growing interest in psychology, sociology, and economics. A quantitative genetic research design provides the necessary tools for this type of analysis. For a state-of-the-art approach, multigroup data is required. Household panel studies, such as BHPS (Understanding Society) in the UK or the SOEP in Germany, combined with an oversampling of twins, provide a powerful starting point since data from a reasonably large number of non-twin relatives is readily available. In addition to advances in our understanding of genetic and environmental influences on key variables in the social sciences, quantitative genetic analyses of target variables can guide molecular genetic research in the field of employment, earnings, health and satisfaction, as combined twin and sibling or parent data can help overcome serious caveats in molecular genetic research.

Keywords: genetics; twins; psychology; sociology; economics; heritability; environment; multigroup design; BHPS; SOEP (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B40 B49 C51 C83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 16
Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.konsortswd.de/wp-content/uploads/RatSWD_WP_45.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:rsw:rswwps:rswwps45

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in RatSWD Working Papers from German Data Forum (RatSWD) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by RatSWD ().