Genetic Variation in Preferences for Giving and Risk Taking

• Main Authors: Cesarini, David Alexander (Contributor), Dawes, Christopher T. (Author), Johannesson, Magnus (Author), Lichtenstein, Paul (Author), Wallace, Bjorn (Author)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MIT Press, 2010-08-31T20:59:15Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

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 standardmethods 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.
Swedish Research Council
Forskningsrådet för arbetsliv och socialvetenskap (Sweden)
Jan Wallander and Tom Hedelius Foundation