Heritability and public policy reconsidered, again

Cornelius A. Rietveld
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Cornelius A. Rietveld: Erasmus School of Economics

No 24-012/V, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute

Abstract: I offer a way out of the Taubman-Goldberger controversy on the public policy (ir)relevance of heritability studies by arguing for a quasi-experimentally controlled comparison of the estimates that these studies provide. If the environments individuals are exposed to are under such control, changes in the genetic and the common environment (family) variance components underlying inter-individual differences can be ex-post informative regarding the evolvement of sources of inequalities in a population. Using administrative data from the Netherlands, I empirically illustrate this reappraisal of heritability studies by estimating two different gene-environment interactions in test scores from a high- stakes national educational achievement test.

Keywords: Education; Equality of opportunity; Inequality; Heritability; Public policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I24 I38 J18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-02-15
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