Biomarkers and Economics

A number of colleagues are currently in the processes of brainstorming on a biomarkers and economics event for London in April. Full details will be up soon. The integration of biological measures into economic data-sets and the utilisation of data-sets with bio-information to test economic hypotheses has been discussed on this blog for a long time, and there is clearly a growing literature with many parallel arms. If anyone is interested in potentially getting involved in this session or has suggestions for speakers for future sessions please email me. Potential uses of bio-markers include generating better econometric models of health and retirement, testing theories of the formation and determinants of preferences, providing a wider range of proxies for well-being, examining adjustment mechanisms that cannot be elicited through standard surveys, validating subjective measures and several others.