This website uses cookies.

By clicking the "Accept" button or continuing to browse our site, you agree to first-party and session-only cookies being stored on your device to enhance site navigation and analyze site performance and traffic. For more information on our use of cookies, please see our Privacy Policy.

  1. Home
  2. Journals
  3. Journal of Economic Perspectives
  4. Fall 2011
  5. Genes, Eyeglasses, and Social Policy

Journal of Economic Perspectives

ISSN 0895-3309 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7965 (Online)

Genes, Eyeglasses, and Social Policy

  • Charles F. Manski
Journal of Economic Perspectives
vol. 25, no. 4, Fall 2011
(pp. 83–94)
Download Full Text PDF
(Complimentary)

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.

Citation

Manski, Charles F. 2011. "Genes, Eyeglasses, and Social Policy." Journal of Economic Perspectives, 25 (4): 83–94. DOI: 10.1257/jep.25.4.83

JEL Classification

  • D78 Positive Analysis of Policy-Making and Implementation
  • A12 Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
There are no comments for this article.
Login to Comment