Greg Clark: Genetics and Social Mobility — Manifold Episode #14

 

Gregory Clark is Distinguished Professor of Economics at UC-Davis. He is an editor of the European Review of Economic History, chair of the steering committee of the All-UC Group in Economic History, and a Research Associate of the Center for Poverty Research at Davis. He was educated at Cambridge University and received a PhD from Harvard University. His areas of research are long-term economic growth, the wealth of nations, economic history, and social mobility. 

Steve and Greg discuss: 

0:00 Introduction 

2:31 Background in economics and genetics 

10:25 The role of genetics in determining social outcomes 

16:27 Measuring social status through marriage and occupation 

36:15 Assortative mating and the industrial revolution 

49:38 Criticisms of empirical data, engagement on genetics and economic history 

1:12:12 Heckman and Landerso study of social mobility in US vs Denmark 

1:24:32 Predicting cognitive traits 

1:33:26 Assortative mating and increase in population variance 

Links: 

For Whom the Bell Curve Tolls: A Lineage of 400,000 English Individuals 1750-2020 shows Genetics Determines most Social Outcomes http://faculty.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/ClarkGlasgow2021.pdf 

Further discussion: https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2021/03/genetic-correlation-of-social-outcomes.html 

A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Farewell_to_Alms 

The Son Also Rises https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Son_Also_Rises_(book)

Transcript.