IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2610.06088.html

Random Genetic Variation Links Personality to Earnings and Wealth

Author

Listed:
  • Leandro Carvalho
  • Sjoerd van Alten
  • Silvia Barcellos
  • Stephen Dorn
  • Titus Galama
  • Catharina A. Hartman
  • Qiongshi Lu
  • Dilnoza Muslimova

Abstract

Personality is associated with economic outcomes, but whether these relationships are causal remains unclear. We exploit within-family variation in genetic propensity toward the Big Five generated by random genetic transmission from parents to offspring. Combining polygenic indexes from the Lifelines cohort study with 19 years of administrative tax records in the Netherlands, we find that greater genetic propensity toward emotional stability increases earnings and household wealth, while genetic propensity toward conscientiousness increases household wealth. The other three traits show no consistent pattern across outcomes and specifications. The effect of genetic propensity toward emotional stability on earnings remains positive as we progressively account for genetic propensity toward educational attainment, cognitive performance, and depression. These findings strengthen the evidence that personality causally affects earnings and wealth.

Suggested Citation

  • Leandro Carvalho & Sjoerd van Alten & Silvia Barcellos & Stephen Dorn & Titus Galama & Catharina A. Hartman & Qiongshi Lu & Dilnoza Muslimova, 2026. "Random Genetic Variation Links Personality to Earnings and Wealth," Papers 2610.06088, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2610.06088
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2610.06088
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2610.06088. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.