基因经济学的承诺与陷阱

The Promises and Pitfalls of Genoeconomics

Annual Review of Economics · 2012
被引 221
人大 A-ABS 3

中文导读

综述了遗传学与经济学交叉领域的研究,发现经济结果和偏好具有较高遗传性,并指出当前基因关联研究因样本量不足导致大量假阳性,提出了改进策略。

Abstract

This article reviews existing research at the intersection of genetics and economics, presents some new findings that illustrate the state of genoeconomics research, and surveys the prospects of this emerging field. Twin studies suggest that economic outcomes and preferences, once corrected for measurement error, appear to be about as heritable as many medical conditions and personality traits. Consistent with this pattern, we present new evidence on the heritability of permanent income and wealth. Turning to genetic association studies, we survey the main ways that the direct measurement of genetic variation across individuals is likely to contribute to economics, and we outline the challenges that have slowed progress in making these contributions. The most urgent problem facing researchers in this field is that most existing efforts to find associations between genetic variation and economic behavior are based on samples that are too small to ensure adequate statistical power. This has led to many false positives in the literature. We suggest a number of possible strategies to improve and remedy this problem: (a) pooling data sets, (b) using statistical techniques that exploit the greater information content of many genes jointly, and (c) focusing on economically relevant traits that are most proximate to known biological mechanisms.

基因经济学遗传关联研究经济偏好遗传力