Heritability of Lifetime Income

Ari Hyytinen, Pekka Ilmakunnas, Edvard Johansson and Otto Toivanen

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Using 15 years of data on Finnish twins, we find that 24% (54%) of the variance of women’s (men’s) lifetime income is due to genetic factors and that the contribution of the shared environment is negligible. We link these figures to policy by showing that controlling for education reduces the variance share of genetics by 5-8 percentage points; by demonstrating that income uncertainty has a genetic component half the size of its variance share in lifetime income; and by exploring how the genetic heritability of lifetime income is related to the macroeconomic environment, as measured by GDP growth and the Gini-coefficient of income inequality.

Keywords: permanent income; income uncertainty; heritability; twins; genetics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I24 J31 J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-04
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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