Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
教育成就中的基因-环境互补性
Gene-Environment Complementarity in Educational Attainment
摘要
Firstborns, on average, complete more education than laterborns. We study whether individuals’ endowments measured by genetic information amplify this effect. Our familyfixed effects approach allows exploiting exogenous variation in birth order and genetic endowments among 14,850 siblings in the UK Biobank. We find that those with higher genetic endowments benefit disproportionately more from being firstborn compared to those with lower endowments, providing a clean example of how nature and nurture interact in producing human capital. Since parental investments are a dominant channel driving birth order effects, our results are consistent with complementarity between endowments and investments in human capital formation.
中文摘要
平均而言，头胎子女比后生子女完成更多教育。我们研究以遗传信息衡量的个体禀赋是否会放大这一效应。通过采用家庭固定效应方法，我们利用英国生物银行中14,850名兄弟姐妹在出生顺序和遗传禀赋上的外生变异进行分析。研究发现，与低遗传禀赋者相比，高遗传禀赋者从作为头胎子女中获得的收益显著更大——这为先天禀赋与后天培养如何相互作用以形成人力资本提供了清晰例证。由于父母投资是驱动出生顺序效应的主导渠道，我们的结果与禀赋与人力资本形成投资之间的互补性假说一致。