Paul James Taubman (1939 – 1995) was an American economist who taught at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

. He conducted a prominent

twin study Twin studies are studies conducted on identical or fraternal twins. They aim to reveal the importance of environmental and genetic influences for traits, phenotypes, and disorders. Twin research is considered a key tool in behavioral genetics ...

on the

heritability Heritability is a statistic used in the fields of Animal husbandry, breeding and genetics that estimates the degree of ''variation'' in a phenotypic trait in a population that is due to genetic variation between individuals in that population. T ...

income Income is the consumption and saving opportunity gained by an entity within a specified timeframe, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. Income is difficult to define conceptually and the definition may be different across fields. F ...

, which was published in 1976. This study has been cited as a pioneering one in the field of genoeconomics. Subsequently,

Arthur Goldberger Arthur Stanley Goldberger (November 20, 1930 – December 11, 2009) was an econometrician and an economist. He worked with Nobel Prize winner Lawrence Klein on the development of the Klein–Goldberger macroeconomic model at the University of ...

published a paper critiquing Taubman's study, noting that heritability estimates were highly sensitive to assumptions about the degree of overlap between genetic and environmental variables. During the 1970s, Taubman also researched the effect of schooling on individual earnings among

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

veterans.

Biography

Taubman received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He became an assistant professor at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in 1964, and left Harvard to become a staff member of the

Council of Economic Advisers The Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) is a United States agency within the Executive Office of the President established in 1946, which advises the president of the United States on economic policy. The CEA provides much of the empirical resea ...

in 1965. He served as an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania from 1966 until 1972, when he was promoted to full professor there. He was elected a fellow of the

Econometric Society The Econometric Society is an international society of academic economists interested in applying statistical tools in the practice of econometrics. It is an independent organization with no connections to societies of professional mathematicians o ...

in 1977. He continued to serve as professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania until his death on May 4, 1995.

References

1939 births 1995 deaths University of Pennsylvania alumni Harvard University faculty University of Pennsylvania faculty 20th-century American economists Fellows of the Econometric Society American econometricians {{US-economist-stub