Titus Galama, Niels Rietveld and Hans van Kippersluis publish Gene-Environment Interaction Study in The Review of Economic Studies
The paper 'The Economics and Econometrics of Gene – Environment Interplay' by Research Fellows Titus Galama (University of Southern California and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), Niels Rietveld (Erasmus University Rotterdam), and Hans van Kippersluis (Erasmus University Rotterdam), together with Pietro Biroli (University of Bologna, Italy), Stephanie von Hinke (University of Bristol, United Kingdom) and Kevin Thom (University of Wisconsin, United States) has been published online in The Review of Economic Studies.
The focus of this paper is to understand how genetic predispositions (nature) interact with environmental factors (nurture)—specifically, school-starting age—in shaping educational outcomes.
Abstract
We discuss how to estimate the interplay between genes (nature) and environments (nurture), with an empirical illustration of the moderating effect of school-starting age on one’s genetic predisposition towards educational attainment. We argue that gene–environment (G × E) studies can be instrumental for (i) assessing treatment effect heterogeneity, (ii) testing theoretical predictions, and (iii) uncovering mechanisms, thereby improving understanding of how (policy) interventions affect population subgroups. Empirically, we find that being old-for-grade and having a higher genetic propensity for education benefits children on assessment tests as they progress through school. In this setting, families appear to increase genetic inequalities while schools seem to reduce them
Article citation
Pietro Biroli, Titus Galama, Stephanie von Hinke, Hans van Kippersluis, Cornelius A. Rietveld and Kevin Thom, ''The Economics and Econometrics of Gene – Environment Interplay', The Review of Economic Studies, published online.