The DNA of enterprise: Genetic endowments, entrepreneurship and wealth distribution

Are entrepreneurs born or made? This paper investigates how genetic endowments shape entrepreneurship, intergenerational mobility, and the wealth distribution in a quantitative overlapping-generations model. Children inherit genetic traits, receive parental investments, and translate these inputs into human capital and occupational choices. The model implies that intergenerational transmission of genetic traits is a key force behind top-end wealth concentration: eliminating the genetic link reduces wealth concentration at the top by more than 90\%. Genetic heterogeneity also has a dual effect on mobility. It sustains the persistence of entrepreneurial dynasties, yet it also enables talented outsiders from low-wealth backgrounds to climb the distribution. Policy experiments reveal that the beneficiaries of financial intervention evolve over time. While credit relaxation initially favors the high genetic endowment group, it triggers a long-run compensatory response among low genetic endowment individuals. For this group, dynastic accumulation of financial wealth plays a more decisive role than human capital investment in offsetting genetic disadvantage.