Meisenberg's new book chapter on intelligence, economics and other stuff
I noted down some comments while reading it.
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In Table 1, Dominican birth cohort is reversed.
“0.70 and 0.80 in world-wide country samples. Figure 1 gives an impression of
this relationship.”
Figure 1 shows regional IQs, not GDP relationships.
“We still depend on these descriptive methods of quantitative genetics because
only a small proportion of individual variation in general intelligence and
school achievement can be explained by known genetic polymorphisms (e.g.,
Piffer, 2013a,b; Rietveld et al, 2013).”
We don't. Modern BG studies can confirm A^2 estimates directly from the genes.
E.g.:
Davies, G., Tenesa, A., Payton, A., Yang, J., Harris, S. E., Liewald, D., ... & Deary, I. J. (2011). Genome-wide association studies establish that human intelligence is highly heritable and polygenic. Molecular psychiatry, 16(10), 996-1005.
Marioni, R. E., Davies, G., Hayward, C., Liewald, D., Kerr, S. M., Campbell, A., ... & Deary, I. J. (2014). Molecular genetic contributions to socioeconomic status and intelligence. Intelligence, 44, 26-32.
Results are fairly low tho, in the 20's, presumably due to non-additive heritability and rarer genes.
“Even in modern societies, the heritability of
intelligence tends to be higher for children from higher socioeconomic status
(SES) families (Turkheimer et al, 2003; cf. Nagoshi and Johnson, 2005; van
der Sluis et al, 2008). Where this is observed, most likely environmental
conditions are of similar high quality for most high-SES children but are more
variable for low-SES children. “
Or maybe not. There are also big studies that don't find this interaction effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Heritability_and_socioeconomic_status
“Schooling has
only a marginal effect on growth when intelligence is included, consistent with
earlier results by Weede & Kämpf (2002) and Ram (2007).”
In the regression model of all countries, schooling has a larger beta than IQ does (.158 and .125). But these appear to be unstandardized values, so they are not readily comparable.
“Also, earlier studies that took account of
earnings and cognitive test scores of migrants in the host country or IQs in
wealthy oil countries have concluded that there is a substantial causal effect of
IQ on earnings and productivity (Christainsen, 2013; Jones & Schneider,
2010)”
National IQs were also found to predict migrant income, as well as most other socioeconomic traits, in Denmark and Norway (and Finland and the Netherland).
Kirkegaard, E. O. W. (2014). Crime, income, educational attainment and employment among immigrant groups in Norway and Finland. Open Differential Psychology.
Kirkegaard, E. O. W., & Fuerst, J. (2014). Educational attainment, income, use of social benefits, crime rate and the general socioeconomic factor among 71 immigrant groups in Denmark. Open Differential Psychology.
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Figures 3 A-C are of too low quality.
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“Allocation of capital resources has been an
element of classical growth theory (Solow, 1956). Human capital theory
emphasizes that individuals with higher intelligence tend to have lower
impulsivity and lower time preference (Shamosh & Gray, 2008). This is
predicted to lead to higher savings rates and greater resource allocation to
investment relative to consumption in countries with higher average
intelligence.”
Time preference data for 45 countries are given by:
Wang, M., Rieger, M. O., & Hens, T. (2011). How time preferences differ: evidence from 45 countries.
They are in the megadataset from version 1.7f
Correlations among some variables of interest:
r
SlowTimePref Income.in.DK Income.in.NO IQ lgGDP
SlowTimePref 1.00 0.45 0.48 0.57 0.64
Income.in.DK 0.45 1.00 0.89 0.55 0.59
Income.in.NO 0.48 0.89 1.00 0.65 0.66
IQ 0.57 0.55 0.65 1.00 0.72
lgGDP 0.64 0.59 0.66 0.72 1.00
n
SlowTimePref Income.in.DK Income.in.NO IQ lgGDP
SlowTimePref 273 32 12 45 40
Income.in.DK 32 273 20 68 58
Income.in.NO 12 20 273 23 20
IQ 45 68 23 273 169
lgGDP 40 58 20 169 273So time prefs predict income in DK and NO only slightly worse than national IQs or lgGDP.
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“Another possible mediator of intelligence effects that is difficult to
measure at the country level is the willingness and ability to cooperate. A
review by Jones (2008) shows that cooperativeness, measured in the Prisoner‟s
dilemma game, is positively related to intelligence. This correlate of
intelligence may explain some of the relationship of intelligence with
governance. Other likely mediators of the intelligence effect include less red
tape and restrictions on economic activities (“economic freedom”), higher
savings and/or investment, and technology adoption in developing countries.”
There are data for IQ and trust too. Presumably trust is closely related to willingness to cooperate.
Carl, N. (2014). Does intelligence explain the association between generalized trust and economic development? Intelligence, 47, 83–92. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2014.08.008
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“There is no psychometric evidence for rising intelligence before that time
because IQ tests were introduced only during the first decade of the 20th
century, but literacy rates were rising steadily after the end of the Middle Age
in all European countries for which we have evidence (Mitch, 1992; Stone,
1969), and the number of books printed per capita kept rising (Baten & van
Zanden, 2008).”
There's also age heaping scores which are a crude measure of numeracy. AH scores for 1800 to 1970 are in the megadataset. They have been going up for centuries too just like literacy scores. See:
A’Hearn, B., Baten, J., & Crayen, D. (2009). Quantifying quantitative literacy: Age heaping and the history of human capital. The Journal of Economic History, 69(03), 783–808.
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“Why did this spiral of economic and cognitive growth take off in Europe
rather than somewhere else, and why did it not happen earlier, for example in
classical Athens or the Roman Empire? One part of the answer is that this
process can start only when technologies are already in place to translate rising
economic output into rising intelligence. The minimal requirements are a
writing system that is simple enough to be learned by everyone without undue
effort, and a means to produce and disseminate written materials: paper, and
the printing press. The first requirement had been present in Europe and the
Middle East (but not China) since antiquity, and the second was in place in
Europe from the 15thcentury. The Arabs had learned both paper-making and
printing from the Chinese in the 13thcentury (Carter, 1955), but showed little
interest in books. Their civilization was entering into terminal decline at about
that time (Huff, 1993). “
Are there no FLynn effects in China? They still have a difficult writing system.
“Most important is that Flynn effect gains have been decelerating in recent
years. Recent losses (anti-Flynn effects) were noted in Britain, Denmark,
Norway and Finland. Results for the Scandinavian countries are based on
comprehensive IQ testing of military conscripts aged 18-19. Evidence for
losses among British teenagers is derived from the Raven test (Flynn, 2009)
and Piagetian tests (Shayer & Ginsburg, 2009). These observations suggest
that for cohorts born after about 1980, the Flynn effect is ending or has ended
in many and perhaps most of the economically most advanced countries.
Messages from the United States are mixed, with some studies reporting
continuing gains (Flynn, 2012) and others no change (Beaujean & Osterlind,
2008).”
These are confounded with immigration of low-g migrants however. Maybe the FLynn effect is still there, just being masked by dysgenics + low-g immigration.
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“The unsustainability of this situation is obvious. Estimating that one third
of the present IQ differences between countries can be attributed to genetics,
and adding this to the consequences of dysgenic fertility within countries,
leaves us with a genetic decline of between 1 and 2 IQ points per generation
for the entire world population. This decline is still more than offset by Flynn
effects in less developed countries, and the average IQ of the world‟s
population is still rising. This phase of history will end when today‟s
developing countries reach the end of the Flynn effect. “Peak IQ” can
reasonably be expected in cohorts born around the mid-21stcentury. The
assumptions of the peak IQ prediction are that (1) Flynn effects are limited by
genetic endowments, (2) some countries are approaching their genetic limits
already, and others will fiollow, and (3) today‟s patterns of differential fertility
favoring the less intelligent will persist into the foreseeable future. “
It is possible that embryo selection for higher g will kick in and change this.
Shulman, C., & Bostrom, N. (2014). Embryo Selection for Cognitive Enhancement: Curiosity or Game-changer? Global Policy, 5(1), 85–92. doi:10.1111/1758-5899.12123
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“Fertility differentials between countries lead to replacement migration: the
movement of people from high-fertility countries to low-fertility countries,
with gradual replacement of the native populations in the low-fertility
countries (Coleman, 2002). The economic consequences depend on the
quality of the migrants and their descendants. Educational, cognitive and
economic outcomes of migrants are influenced heavily by prevailing
educational, cognitive and economic levels in the country of origin (Carabaña,
2011; Kirkegaard, 2013; Levels & Dronkers, 2008), and by the selectivity of
migration. Brain drain from poor to prosperous countries is extensive already,
for example among scientists (Franzoni, Scellato & Stephan, 2012; Hunter,
Oswald & Charlton, 2009). “
There are quite a few more papers on the spatial transferability hypothesis. I have 5 papers on this alone in ODP: http://openpsych.net/ODP/tag/country-of-origin/
But there's also yet unpublished data for crime in Netherlands and more crime data for Norway. Papers based off these data are on their way.