Genes, Eyeglasses, and Social Policy

Charles Manski

Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2011, vol. 25, issue 4, 83-94

Abstract: Someone reading empirical research relating human genetics to personal outcomes must be careful to distinguish two types of work: An old literature on heritability attempts to decompose cross-sectional variation in observed outcomes into unobservable genetic and environmental components. A new literature measures specific genes and uses them as observed covariates when predicting outcomes. I will discuss these two types of work in terms of how they may inform social policy. I will argue that research on heritability is fundamentally uninformative for policy analysis, but make a cautious argument that research using genes as covariates is potentially informative.

JEL-codes: A12 D78 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.25.4.83
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (35)

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