In keeping up with cutting-edge economics research, GSE chose a controversial topic for its opening seminar in the microeconomic series for this academic year: Genoeconomics.
Daniel Benjamin came to the UPF campus on September 30th to give an introduction into this brand new field of research. The areas is currently opening up in light of the cheap DNA data now available to researchers. Given, as Benjamin rightly stated, it is natural for economists to seize on this new opportunity for analytical enquiry, he has been testing the question: does our genetic code influence our economic behaviour?
Benjamin gave us a brief overview of the kinds of effects his work his modeling, which I will summarise even more briefly: over 99% of genetic data is the same from one person to another, however along the genome there are certain locations where variation is more likely. One such variation is a Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs – pronounced ‘snips’ – for short); there are around 10 million such variations in the human genome. Although there is also genetic variation of other types, this is the most common. Benjamin and his many collaborators are studying SNPs. Continue reading “The promises and pitfalls of genoeconomics”