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

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

. 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 a ...

on the

heritability Heritability is a statistic used in the fields of 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. The concept of h ...

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. For ...

, 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, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

veterans.

Biography

Taubman received his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

from the University of Pennsylvania. He became an assistant professor at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

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 to their field. It is an independent organization with no connections to societies of professional mathematicians or statisticians. ...

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 Econometricians {{US-economist-stub