{
  "id": 12139694,
  "title": "The Greg Clark Symposium",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/05/the-greg-clark-symposium",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-10-05T11:21:04.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Marginal Revolution",
    "slug": "marginal-revolution",
    "url": "https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/10/the-greg-clark-symposium.html"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The Greg Clark Symposium, held in Econ Journal Watch, is a welcomed event that features serious critics and supporters of Greg Clark's new book. Critics Stuhler and Benning are among those presenting their viewpoints, but Arden and Plomin agree with Clark's overall message that genetics accounts for outcomes long attributed to nurture. Clark's book is impressive for its extensive data collection from diverse sources such as wedding-register marks, probate courts, Huguenot wills, Oxbridge matriculation rolls, Sandhurst cadet lists, Wedgwood servants, and the Guild of One-Name Studies.\n\nThe analyses conducted in the book are remarkable given the complex task of harmonizing data types, time, and place. The book's audacity to challenge important questions is evident, and its interdisciplinary nature promises to enrich the conversation regarding social status, its causes, and malleability. Critics acknowledge that twin and adoption studies have undermined the claim that parental investments are significant determinants of adult ability and earnings. However, they also note that more elaborate environmental models can reproduce genetic-looking correlations, but this does not vindicate the original explanation.\n\nOne notable finding from Clark's research is that social status is inherited as strongly as height, even across distant relatives separated by nine generations and 270 years. This remarkable finding remains significant despite the industrial revolution, multiple wars, and changing social mores. The book also explores the differences between nurture effects that impact optional choices versus those that affect fundamental abilities. Parents have a more substantial influence on factors such as religious identification, wealth, educational attainment, and IQ compared to their impact on income.",
  "summary": "Earlier I wrote “Greg Clark may well be the most important social scientist of the 21st century.” Thus, the symposium in Econ Journal Watch on Clark’s new but perhaps not forthcoming book is very welcome. The symposium includes serious critics, most notably Stuhler and Benning, but I suspect even the critics would agree with Arden […] The post The Greg Clark Symposium appeared first on Marginal…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}