I came away from the meeting with a long reading list and several thoughts. First, all symposiums--but especially those discussing grounds for optimism about the human project--should be held in Napa Valley. Conditions in the area lend themselves to cheerfulness, at times almost excessively so. (It is not for nothing that I got married there. Not this week, you understand. That was a previous visit.)
Second, the interface between genetics and economics is well worth exploring. I reached the same conclusion a few years ago after reading Paul Seabright's "The Company of Strangers", a really wonderful book that has not had the readership it deserves. (Here is a review I wrote for The Economist.) Perhaps the literature is about to blossom now, however. A lot of research seems to be under way.
One of the participants in the symposium was Anna Dreber, who has been researching among other things the links between testosterone and risk-taking in financial markets, and the connection between a certain genetic trait, DRD4, and economic behaviour. DRD4 appears to be linked to migration--a highly entrepreneurial activity--and again to financial risk-taking. One wonders whether bank regulators, in the aftermath of some future financial meltdown, will want banks to monitor the incidence of DRD4 among their employees, and perhaps set higher capital requirements for institutions with too high a reading. (Explicit genetic discrimination in hiring will be illegal, of course, so the issue will have to be dealt with after the fact. Alternatively, they could just hire more women.)
Robin Hanson of GMU and Overcoming Bias was also at the meeting. He gave an excellent presentation on the misunderstood pre-history of economic growth. He offers some further reflections on the topic, deeper than mine, on his blog.
Too funny. Seems to me that the louder conservatives bray about belief and creationism, the more devout they are in the practice of economic Darwinism.
And now it's a science.
But I do wonder about one thing: While they measure banks for DRD4, will they also measure NBA athletes for tall-genes, and make sure no single team has too many tall players?
In all this gene measuring, it's too bad they don't also study the science of genetic cooperation; how things survive better when they learn to work together. Think of the fauna and flora in your own stomach, the fungi needed for orchids to grow. The inoculant I put in my pea patch.
But that would be socialism, wouldn't it?