TY - JOUR
T1 - Genetic variation in preferences for giving and risk taking
AU - Cesarini, David
AU - Dawes, Christopher T.
AU - Johannesson, Magnus
AU - Lichtenstein, Paul
AU - Wallace, Björn
N1 - Funding Information:
∗This paper has benefited from discussions with Coren Apicella, Samuel Bowles, Terry Burnham, Bryan Caplan, Tore Ellingsen, James Fowler, Jon Gruber, Garett Jones, Moses Ndulu, Matthew Notowidigdo, Niels Rosenquist, Paul Schrimpf, Steven Pinker, Tino Sanandaji, Örjan Sandewall, Vernon Smith and Robert Östling. Thanks to Larry Katz and six anonymous referees for very helpful comments. We thank the Jan Wallander and Tom Hedelius Foundation, the Swedish Research Council, and the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research for financial support. The Swedish Twin Registry is supported by grants from the Swedish Research Council, The Ministry for Higher Education and Astra Zeneca. Rozita Broumandi and Camilla Björk at the Swedish Twin Registry responded to a number of queries, for which we are grateful. Patrik Ivert, Niklas Kaunitz and Benjamin Katzeff provided excellent research assistance. We are grateful to a number of colleagues, especially Håkan Jerker Holm and Fredrik Carlsson, for help with subject recruitment outside Stockholm. The paper was completed while David Cesarini was visiting the Research Institute of Industrial Economics in Stockholm; he gratefully acknowledges their hospitality.
PY - 2009/5
Y1 - 2009/5
N2 - In this paper, we use the classical twin design to provide estimates of genetic and environmental influences on experimentally elicited preferences for risk and giving. Using standard methods from behavior genetics, we find strong prima facie evidence that these preferences are broadly heritable and our estimates suggest that genetic differences explain approximately twenty percent of individual variation. The results thus shed light on an important source of individual variation in preferences, a source that has hitherto been largely neglected in the economics literature.
AB - In this paper, we use the classical twin design to provide estimates of genetic and environmental influences on experimentally elicited preferences for risk and giving. Using standard methods from behavior genetics, we find strong prima facie evidence that these preferences are broadly heritable and our estimates suggest that genetic differences explain approximately twenty percent of individual variation. The results thus shed light on an important source of individual variation in preferences, a source that has hitherto been largely neglected in the economics literature.
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U2 - 10.1162/qjec.2009.124.2.809
DO - 10.1162/qjec.2009.124.2.809
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:61449213029
SN - 0033-5533
VL - 124
SP - 809
EP - 842
JO - Quarterly Journal of Economics
JF - Quarterly Journal of Economics
IS - 2
ER -