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Extract :
A fundamental question in social science has long been the degree to which children’s outcomes are influenced by genes, environment, and the interaction of the two. One sensible way to attempt to separate out the effects of genes and environment is to examine data on twins or adoptees since we may be able to make plausible assumptions about the genetic relationships between identical versus fraternal twins, or between parents and their adoptive and non-adoptive children. I begin this chapter by reviewing the methods used by psychologists and behavioral geneticists to identify the effects of nature and nurture, and I summarize some of the key results from this large literature. I discuss the assumptions underlying the behavioral genetics model and explain some of the challenges to interpreting the results. I use these issues of interpretation to motivate why economists and sociologists have used a different approach to measuring the impact of environment on children’s outcomes. And I discuss the results from the recent literature in economics on environmental versus genetic determinants of children’s education, income, and health. Finally, I try to bring the results from both literatures together to address the issues of what we do know, what we don’t know and whether this work has implications for social policy or other research on children’s outcomes.
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Principles of Economics
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