Richard Karlsson Linnér
Assistant Professor
- Name
- Dr. R. Karlsson Linnér MSc
- Telephone
- +31 70 800 6463
- r.karlsson.linner@law.leidenuniv.nl
- ORCID iD
- 0000-0001-7839-2858
Richard Karlsson Linnér is an assistant professor at the Department of Economics at Leiden University.
Richard is an economist specialised in social-science genetics. His research investigates how genetic variants give rise to the heritability of traits like risk taking, educational attainment, or impulsivity, and then how these genetic propensities lead to adverse health and health inequalities over the lifespan. A beneficial by-product of his research is that the results can be leveraged in genetic research designs to strengthen statistical and causal inference for other research questions, e.g. when conducting policy evaluation or economic experiments. One of his particular interests is understanding the genetic contributions to preventable health-risk behaviours for which the socioeconomic environment also plays a major role (e.g. smoking or substance use). His recent work investigates economic consequences of genomic medicine and consumer genetic testing for various markets (e.g. those for healthcare or insurance).
Richard holds an M.Sc. in Economics from Linköping University, Sweden. In 2019, he was awarded a PhD in Social-Science Genetics by the Center for Neurogenomics and Cognitive Research (CNCR) at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Before his appointment as assistant professor at the Department of Economics of Leiden University, he worked as postdoctoral fellow for three years, which included a role as visiting researcher at Geisinger, a US-based health-care system with a spearhead genetic research programme. In 2018, Richard and Professor Philipp Koellinger were jointly awarded a topicality grant by the Dutch academic network Netspar to study the economic consequences of genetic testing for insurance and retirement.
Teaching
- Behavioural Business Economics
- Datavisualisatie en programmeren E&S
- MA theses MEPS
Assistant Professor
- Faculty of Law
- Institute of Tax Law and Economics
- Economics
- Tanksley P.T., Brislin S.J., Wertz J., Vlaming R. de, Courchesne-Krak N.S., Mallard T.T., Raffington L.L., Karlsson Linnér R., Koellinger P., Palmer A.A., Sanchez-Roige S., Waldman I.D., Dick D., Moffitt T.E., Caspi A. & Harden K.P. (2025), Do polygenic indices capture “direct” effects on child externalizing behavior problems?: Within-family analyses in two longitudinal birth cohorts, Clinical Psychological Science 13(2): 316-331.
- Weng L.C., Rämö J.T., Jurgens S.J., Khursid S., Chaffin M., Weber Hall A., Morrill V.N., Wang X., Nauffal V., Sun Y.V., Beer D., Lee S., Nadkarni G.N., Duong T., Wang B., Czuba T., Austin T.R., Yoneda Z.T., Friedman D.J., Clayton A., Hyman M.C., Judy R.L., Skanes A.C., Orland K.M., Treu T.M., Oetjens M.T., Alonso A., Soliman E.Z., Lin H., Lunetta K.L., Pals J. van der, Issa T.Z., Nafissi N.A., May H.T., Leong-Sit P., Roselli C., Choi S.H., FinnGen, Million Veteran Program, Regeneron Genetics Center, Khan H.R., Knight S., Karlsson Linnér R., Bezzina C.R., Ripatti S., Heckbert S.R., Gaziano J.M., Loos R.J.F., Psaty B.M., Smith J.G., Benjamin E.J., Arking D.E., Rader D.J., Shah S.H., Roden D.M., Damrauer S.M., Eckhardt L.L., Roberts J.D., Cutler M.J., Shoemaker M.B., Haggerty C.M., Cho K., Palotie A., Wilson P.W.F., Ellinor P.T. & Lubitz S.A. (2025), The impact of common and rare genetic variants on bradyarrhythmia development, Nature Genetics 57(1): 53-64.
- Kweon H., Burik C.A.P., Ning Y., Ahlskog R., Xia C., Abner E., Bao Y., Bhatta L., Faquih T.O., Feijter M. de, Fisher P., Gelemanovic A., Giannelis A., Hottenga J.J., Khalili B., Lee Y., Li-Gao R., Masso J., Myhre R., Palviainen T., Rietveld C.A., Teumer A., Verweij R.M., Willoughby E.A., Agerbo E., Bergmann S., Boomsma D.I., Borglum A.D., Brumpton B.M., Davies N.M., Esko T., Gordon S.D., Homuth G., Ikram M.A., Johannesson M., Kaprio J., Kidd M.P., Kutalik Z., Kwong A.S.F., Lee J.J., Luik A.I., Magnus P., Marques-Vidal P., Martin N.G., Mook-Kanamori D.O., Mortensen P.B., Oskarsson S., Pedersen E.M., Polasek O., Rosendaal F.R., Smart M.C., Snieder H., Most P.J. van der, Vollenweider P., Völzke H., Willemsen G., Beauchamp J.P., DiPetre T.A., Karlsson Linnér R., Lu Q., Morris T.T., Okbay A., Harden K.P., Abdellaoui A., Hill W.D., Vlaming R. de, Benjamin D.J. & Koellinger P.D. (2025), Associations between common genetic variants and income provide insights about the socio-economic health gradient, Nature Human Behaviour 9: 794-805.
- Karlsson Linnér R. & Jain M. (2025), "The risks cannot be compensated”: The willingness to donate DNA for science and its relationship with economic preferences, Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique 58(2): 515-547.
- Weng Lu-Chen Khurshid Shaan Hall Amelia Weber Nauffal Victor Morrill Valerie N. Sun Yan V. Rämö Joel T. Beer Dominik Lee Simon Nadkarni Girish Johnson Renee Andreasen Laura Clayton Anne Pullinger Clive R. Yoneda Zachary T. Friedman Daniel J. Hyman Matthew C. Judy Renae L. Skanes Allan C. Orland Kate M. Jordà Paloma Treu Timothy M. Oetjens Matthew T. Subbiah Rajesh Hartmann Jacob P. May Heidi T. Kane John P. Issa Tariq Z. Nafissi Navid A. Leong-Sit Peter Dubé Marie-Pierre Roselli Carolina Choi Seung Hoan {name=FinnGen Million Veteran Program Regeneron Genetics Center sequence=additional affiliation=[]} Tardif Jean-Claude Khan Habib R. Knight Stacey Svendsen Jesper H. Walker Bruce Karlsson Linnér Richard Gaziano J. Michael Tadros Rafik Fatkin Diane Rader Daniel J. Shah Svati H. Roden Dan M. Marcus Gregory M. Loos Ruth J.F. Damrauer Scott M. Haggerty Christopher M. Cho Kelly Palotie Aarno Olesen Morten S. Eckhardt Lee L. Roberts Jason D. Cutler Michael J. Shoemaker M. Benjamin Wilson Peter W.F. Ellinor Patrick T. Lubitz Steven A. (2024), Meta-Analysis of Genome-Wide Association Studies Reveals Genetic Mechanisms of Supraventricular Arrhythmias, Circulation: Genomic and Precision Medicine 17(3): e004320.
- Kang J., Castro V.M., Ripperger M., Venkatesh S., Burstein D., Karlsson Linnér R., Rocha D.B., Hu Y., Wilimitis D., Morley T., Han L., Kim R.Y., Feng Y.-C.A., Ge T., Heckers S., Voloudakis G., Chabris C., Roussos P., McCoy T.H., Walsh C.G., Perlis R.H. & Ruderfer D.M. (2024), Genome-wide association study of treatment-resistant depression: shared biology with metabolic traits, The American Journal of Psychiatry 181(7): 608-619.
- Williams C.M., Poore H., Tanksley P.T., Kweon H., Courchesne-Krak N.S., Londono-Correa D., Mallard T.T., Barr P., Koellinger P.D., Waldman I.D., Sanchez-Roige S., Harden K.P., Palmer A.A., Dick D.M. & Karlsson Linnér R. (2023), Guidelines for evaluating the comparability of down-sampled GWAS summary statistics, Behavior Genetics 53(5/6): 404-415.
- Koellinger P.D., Okbay A., Kweon H., Schweinert A., Karlsson Linnér R., Goebel J., Richte D., Reiber L., Zweck B.M., Belsky D.W., Biroli P., Mata R., Tucker-Drob E.M., Harden K.P., Wagner G. & Hertwig R. (2023), Cohort profile: genetic data in the German Socio-Economic Panel innovation sample (SOEP-G), PLoS ONE 18(11): e0294896.
- Karlsson Linnér R. & Koellinger P.D. (2022), Genetic risk scores in life insurance underwriting, Journal of Health Economics 81: 102556.
- Mallard T.T., Karlsson Linnér R., Grotzinger A.D., Sanchez-Roige S., Seidlitz J., Okbay A., Vlaming R. de, Meddens S.F.W., Bipolar Disorder Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, Palmer A.A., Davis L.K., Tucker-Drob E.M., Kendler K.S., Keller M.C., Koellinger P.D. & Harden K.P. (2022), Multivariate GWAS of psychiatric disorders and their cardinal symptoms reveal two dimensions of cross-cutting genetic liabilities, Cell Genomics 2(6): 100140.
- Barr P.B., Mallard T.T., Sanchez-Roige S., Poore H.E., Karlsson Linnér R., Porjesz B., Hesselbrock V., Foroud T., Agrawal A., Dick D., Edenberg H.J., Nürnberger J., Liu Y., Kuperman S., Kramer J., Meyers J., Kamarajan C., Pandey A., Bierut L., Rice J., Bucholz K., Schuckit M., Tischfield J., Hart R., Salvatore J., Almasy L., Goate A., Kapoor M., Slesinger P., Scott D., Bauer L., Wetherill L., Xuei X., Lai D., O'Connor S., Plawecki M., Acion L., Chan G., Chorlian D.B., Zhang J., Kinreich S., Pandey G., Chao M., Anokhin A., McCutcheon V., Saccone S., Aliev F., Chin H., Parsian A., Waldman I. D., Palmer A.A., Harden K.P. & Dick D.M. (2022), Parsing genetically influenced risk pathways: genetic loci impact problematic alcohol use via externalizing and specific risk, Translational Psychiatry 12: 1-8 (420).
- Barr P.B., Driver M.N., Kuo S., Stephenson M., Aliev F., Karlsson Linnér R., Marks J., Anokhin A.P., Bucholz K., Chan G., Edenberg H.J., Edwards A.C., Francis M.W., Hancock D.B., Harden K.P., Kamarajan C., Kaprio J., Kinreich S., Kramer J.R., Kuperman S., Latvala A., Meyers J.L., Palmer A.A., Plawecki M.H., Porjesz B., Rose R.J., Schuckit M.A., Salvatore J.E. & Dick D.M. (2022), Clinical, environmental, and genetic risk factors for substance use disorders: characterizing combined effects across multiple cohorts, Molecular Psychiatry 27: 4633-4641.
- Tielbeek J.J., Karlsson Linnér R., Beers K., Posthuma D., Popma A. & Polderman T.J.C. (2016), Meta-analysis of the serotonin transporter promoter variant (5-HTTLPR) in relation to adverse environment and antisocial behavior, American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics 171(5): 748-760.