Genetics and economics: Studies and perspectives

Alfredo Martin Navarro

doi:10.24215/18521649e036

Authors

Alfredo Martin Navarro Academia Nacional de Ciencias Económicas, Argentina

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24215/18521649e036

Keywords:

genetics, human genome, human behavior

Abstract

This paper analyzes the relationship between genetics and economics and the effects of both genetics and the environment on the phenotype of human beings. Among other issues, it describes how data from the human genome can be used to explain certain economic characteristics, such as the existence of entrepreneurship, attitude towards risk, income level, propensity to invest, and ease of receiving education. A series of works related to this issue are analyzed, and the various ways of drawing conclusions from existing data are described. The paper concludes by stating that this type of study is in its infancy, but that it helps to better understand, along with the evaluation of the environment, certain characteristics of human behavior and opens an interesting field of study for economics.

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Author Biography

Alfredo Martin Navarro, Academia Nacional de Ciencias Económicas, Argentina

Born in Mar del Plata, Argentina. He completed his studies at the University of Buenos Aires, where he graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Economics in 1958 and a Doctorate in Economic Sciences in 1959. He attended postgraduate courses at Harvard University (1968), Lancaster University (1977), and Cambridge University (2003). He served as the president of the Argentine Association of Political Economy during the 1988-90 period and has been a full member of the National Academy of Economic Sciences since 1997, currently holding the position of First Vice President. He has taught at the University of Buenos Aires and at the National Universities of Mar del Plata, La Plata, and Cuyo, as well as at the Catholic Universities of La Plata and Mar del Plata, offering courses in Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Econometrics, Monetary Economics, and the History of Economic Thought. He was co-director of the Revista Económica of the Faculty of Economic Sciences at the National University of La Plata from 2008 to 2015 and is a member of the Editorial Committee of the journals of the National Universities of the South and of Córdoba. He is the author of approximately seventy papers published in various journals and scientific institutions and the editor of three books on economic topics, which can be viewed on his website, a-navarro.com.ar.

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