Many people interested in economics and economic development will be familiar with this book:
Lynn, Richard and Tatu Vanhanen. 2002. IQ and the Wealth of Nations. Praeger, Westport, Conn. and London.The conclusions of this book have always seemed bizarre and ridiculous to me.
If you can’t be bothered wading through the work, you can read a summary of its content here and here, or a good critical scholarly review like Richardson (2004).
The blogosphere has recently seen some revival of interest in this book, and, interestingly, of a welcome critical kind. Of all places, the American Conservative has an article questioning the central thesis (not a venue I’d expect to be critical!).
A former World Bank economist Charles Kenny rightly attacks the book and those development economists parroting its thesis. Certain critics of Kenny seized on his use of Stephen Jay Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man, pointing out errors that Gould made. Frankly, I don’t think it is a big secret that good researchers opposed to racism found Gould’s book flawed (Flynn 1999: 373). Moreover, unfortunately for the critics of Kenny, the truth is that Lynn and Vanhanen’s thesis is undoubtedly balderdash.
For me the recent criticism is rather old news: for years, I have thought there was something deeply rotten in Lynn and Vanhanen’s IQ and the Wealth of Nations. I’ll review the central thesis of the book and why it is false below.
I. What is Lynn and Vanhanen’s Thesis?
One finding of Lynn and Vanhanen that national differences in per capita GDP are correlated with differences in the average intelligence quotient (IQ) scores is both unsurprising and obviously true (Richardson 2004: 359). The further assertion that the difference in average national IQ is one major factor causing the national differences in GDP and economic growth might seem plausible, at a first glance, but even here doubts arise, if one assumes, as Lynn and Vanhanen do, that the direction from causality runs simply from IQ to GDP.
By the time we get to the book’s conclusion we find highly dubious, even repulsive, ideas indeed:
“The genetic factor in national IQs strengthens our thesis that national IQs are a causal factor responsible for the differences in economic development. The racial differences in intelligence that underlie the national differences in economic development and in the wealth and poverty of nations must have been present for thousands of years. .... If differences in national IQs are genetically determined to a significant extent, as we believe, we have to conclude that it would not be possible to eradicate these differences by any environmental interventions or manipulations except possibly by massive eugenics measures that would not be practical. For this reason, it will be impossible to achieve economic equality between nations. It is more probable that, with further technological developments demanding high intelligence, international economic inequalities will increase even more in the future. Perhaps ultimately, with continued immigration of third world peoples into economically developed nations, there may be such a large amount of biological mixing of racial groups that national differences in intelligence may be reduced and or may even lead to the disappearance of the present differences in national IQs, but such a process would take a long time. Thus, our conclusion is that we must accept that the world is divided into rich and poor countries and that the gap between them is partly based on genetic differences in intelligence, which will make it impossible to equalize economic conditions in different parts of the world.” (Lynn and Vanhanen 2002: 194).These are words that you have to read again after a first reading, because you doubt if you read them right.
Strangely, after one reads this, on the very next page, one finds Lynn and Vanhanen asserting that “approximately 50 to 60 percent of the variation in per capita income and economic growth rates seems to be due to those other factors, which may include systematic, local and random factors” (Lynn and Vanhanen 2002: 195) – which seems to contradict their previous strident statement. Lynn and Vanhanen (2002: 195) find that the other factor driving economic growth is the extent to which a nation has a market economy, though I frankly doubt whether their simplistic notion of a “market economy” takes account of the extraordinary degree of intervention in, say, newly industrialised nations like South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, where industrial policy, protectionism and partial government planning of economic development was the key to success.
Lynn and Vanhanen still conclude that “there will inevitably be a continuation of economic inequalities between nations. Intelligence differences between nations will be impossible to eradicate because they have a genetic basis and have evolved over the course of tens of thousands years” (Lynn and Vanhanen 2002: 195).
But, curiously, Lynn and Vanhanen do not draw radical libertarian conclusions from their thesis, but instead argue that the “rich countries may have to accept that they have an ethical obligation to provide financial assistance to the people of the poor countries for the indefinite future” and that “aid programs for the poor countries should be continued” (Lynn and Vanhanen 2002: 196).
Let us move to a critique of Lynn and Vanhanen.
II. Critiques
First, there is the issue of how reliable and representative Lynn and Vanhanen’s test data for many developing nations was: this has always been a legitimate charge levelled at them by critics. Of the 185 nations in their study, direct evidence for national IQ was available only for 81, while for 101 nations average IQ was merely estimated by data from other “most appropriate countries” (Richardson 2004: 359). And even some of the data here seems highly selective and unrepresentative: a survey of just 50 13–16 year olds in Columbia and 48 10–14 year olds in Equatorial Guinea (Richardson 2004: 359). Do samples of less than 50 children really give us reliable data on average IQ in these nations? I doubt it.
To my mind, one of most bizarre and questionable findings of the book was that Qatar (a country with a high GDP and per capita GDP) only had an average IQ of 78. On what was this based? According to Lynn and Vanhanen (2002: 217) it was based on nothing but one study of 273 12 year olds from 1987!
Even putting aside concerns about the reliability of average IQs as reported in the book, the second point fatal to the thesis is the so-called Flynn effect (Richardson 2004: 359).
One can’t really discuss this subject without looking at the work of James R. Flynn (Flynn 2009; Flynn 2008).
In essence, the Flynn effect is the rise in average intelligence quotient (IQ) scores, which are supposed to measure general intelligence (or g), over the course of the twentieth century:
“the Flynn effect is the name given to a substantial and long-sustained increase in intelligence test scores measured in many parts of the world. When intelligence quotient (IQ) tests are initially standardized using a sample of test-takers, by convention the average of the test results is set to 100 and their standard deviation is set to 15 or 16 IQ points. When IQ tests are revised, they are again standardized using a new sample of test-takers, usually born more recently than the first. Again, the average result is set to 100. However, when the new test subjects take the older tests, in almost every case their average scores are significantly above 100.”A consequence of the Flynn effect is that earlier generations would have done poorly on modern IQ tests: average modern IQ is higher than in the past.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
If IQ tests really measure innate intelligence, as Lynn and Vanhanen maintain, then we should not see the Flynn effect. If IQ tests do not measure innate intelligence, then the whole study of Lynn and Vanhanen was a waste of time, for the IQ data they accumulate does not reflect the underlying and allegedly innate intelligence of the national populations in question (Richardson 2004: 359). Flynn himself now believes that the Flynn effect is evidence of increased mental ability: if that is so, then the edifice of Lynn and Vanhanen – the supposed largely inflexible nature of IQ – falls like a house of cards.
The rise in average IQ in various countries over time has not been uniform, however.
Richardson has made a more significant criticism of Lynn and Vanhanen’s method:
“Their scheme is to take the British Ravens IQ in 1979 as 100, and simply add or subtract 2 or 3 to the scores from other countries for each decade that the relevant date of test departs from that year. The assumptions of size, linearity and universal applicability of this correction across all countries are, of course, hugely questionable if not breathtaking. Flynn’s original results were from only 14 (recently extended to twenty) industrialised nations, and even those gains varied substantially with test and country and were not linear. For example, recent studies report increases of eight points per decade among Danes; six points per decade in Spain; and 26 points over 14 years in Kenya (confirming the expectation that newly developing countries would show more rapid gains). (Richardson 2004: 359).Different countries have seen different rates of increase in average IQ, and the most significant rises have been in developing or newly industrialising nations, such as, for example, Japan:
“Lynn and Hampson (1986) review five studies providing evidence on the secular trend of intelligence in Japan for the post World War II period. They conclude that two studies of the early post World War II period show substantial IQ gains of 9.9 and 11.4 IQ points per decade, giving an average of 10.7 IQ points per decade. Three studies of a longer period from approximately 1950–1975 – so for those approximately born 1940–1965 – show lower gains of 9.1, 8.3, and 5.7 IQ points per decade, giving an average gain of 7.7 IQ points per decade. This is the highest gain on a broad intelligence battery in the literature.” (Nijenhuis et al. 2012)Japan, then, has seen an extraordinary rise in average IQ over this century. In the late 1800s or early 1900s, when Japan began to industrialise and experience industrial take off, it must have had an average IQ as low as any poor developing nation today, even if there was a mild to moderate Flynn effect from the 1860s–1920s. How, then, did Japan achieve such tremendous economic success? (my answer is: a major reason was successful industrial policy). A low average IQ by modern standards did not prevent Japan’s industrialisation, nor should we expect such low IQs to stop economic development in the case of modern developing nations, given the right policies.
Similar things can be said about America: it is likely that the average IQ in America from 1910–1920 was about 76, and was perhaps even slightly lower in the 19th century: and without doubt lower than the average IQ today in Ghana, Congo, Uganda, and Tanzania: yet America still industrialised and developed rapidly. If an average IQ of 76 prevents industrialisation and economic growth, why did America develop?
It is obvious that economic development and GDP growth have complex and multiple causes.
As for IQ, it must be seen as a function of both genetic and environmental factors. So what are the environmental factors that influence IQ? Most probably disease control, health care, nutrition, diet, culture and education. And these obviously have a very significant influence.
In the last few years, there has emerged strong evidence that simple interventions to reduce and prevent infectious disease in children will increase IQ considerably:
“Infectious disease is a factor that may rob large amounts of energy away from a developing brain. ... A great deal of research has shown that average IQ varies around the world, both across nations and within them. The cause of this variation has been of great interest to scientists for many years. .... Before our work, several scientists had offered explanations for the global pattern of IQ. Nigel Barber argued that variation in IQ is due primarily to differences in education. Donald Templer and Hiroko Arikawa argued that colder climates are difficult to live in, such that evolution favors higher IQ in those areas. Satoshi Kanazawa suggested that evolution favors higher IQ in areas that are farther from the evolutionary origin of humans: sub-Saharan Africa. .... We tested all these ideas. In our 2010 study, we not only found a very strong relationship between levels of infectious disease and IQ, but controlling for the effects of education, national wealth, temperature, and distance from sub-Saharan Africa, infectious disease emerged as the best predictor of the bunch. A recent study by Christopher Hassall and Thomas Sherratt repeated our analysis using more sophisticated statistical methods, and concluded that infectious disease may be the only really important predictor of average national IQ.”All of this totally undermines the idea of Lynn and Vanhanen that IQ differences between nations will be impossible to eradicate because of some kind of rigid and inflexible genetic cause of IQ.
Christopher Eppig, “Why Is Average IQ Higher in Some Places?,” Scientific American, September 6, 2011.
III. Conclusions
The recent finding that the Flynn effect appears to have ended in some developed nations means that over time, with improved epidemiology, post and prenatal care, nutrition, education, welfare and economic development, national differences in average IQ scores will significantly diminish to insignificant levels.
One might conclude that the average national IQ is simply a measure of the size of a country’s educated middle class, and the size of that middle class is a consequence of industrial development (Richardson 2004: 359), and other factors.
Whatever the genetic component in human intelligence, it is clear that intelligence, if IQ tests really measure it, is also a function of environmental factors like epidemiology, health care (including pre-natal and natal and childhood health care), nutrition, diet, culture and education.
We can expect the IQ gap between the developing nations and the developed nations to close in the course of this century, as the Flynn effect most probably hits a wall in the developed world and the third world catches up. That will require a wide range of good policies to address all the factors that effect IQ.
Book Reviews of IQ and the Wealth of Nations
Godina, Elena. 2005. “IQ and the Wealth of Nations. By Richard Lynn & Tatu Vanhanen,” Journal of Biosocial Science 37.6: 783–785.
Palairet, M. R. 2004. “IQ and the Wealth of Nations,” Heredity 92.4: 361–362.
Richardson, K. 2004. “IQ and the Wealth of Nations,” Heredity 92.4: 359–360.
Volken, Thomas. 2003. “IQ and the Wealth of Nations: A Critique of Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen’s Recent Book,” European Sociological Review 19.4: 411–412.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Eppig, Christopher. 2011. “Why Is Average IQ Higher in Some Places?,” Scientific American, September 6.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-is-average-iq-higher-in-some-places
Flynn, James R. 1987. “Massive IQ Gains in 14 nations: What IQ Tests Really Measure,” Psychological Bulletin 101: 171–191.
Flynn, James R. 1991. Asian Americans: Achievement Beyond IQ. L. Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, N.J.
Flynn, James R. 1994. “IQ Gains Over Time,” in R. J. Sternberg (ed.), Encyclopedia of Human intelligence. Macmillan, New York. 617–623.
Flynn, James R. 1999. “Evidence against Rushton: The Genetic Loading of the Wisc-R Subtests and the Causes of Between-Group IQ Differences,” Personality and Individual Differences 26: 373–393.
Flynn, James. 2007. “Interview: James Flynn. Receiver of Wisdom,” The Guardian, 2 January 2007.
Flynn, James R. 2008. Where Have all the Liberals Gone?: Race, Class, and Ideals in America. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Flynn, James R. 2009. What is Intelligence?: Beyond the Flynn Effect. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York.
Flynn, James R. 2010. “The Spectacles through Which I See the Race and IQ Debate,” Intelligence 38.4: 363–366.
Godina, Elena. 2005. “IQ and the Wealth of Nations. By Richard Lynn & Tatu Vanhanen,” Journal of Biosocial Science 37.6: 783–785.
Gould, Stephen Jay. 1996. The Mismeasure of Man (rev. edn.). Norton, London and New York.
Hassall, Christopher and Thomas N. Sherratt, 2011. “Statistical Inference and Spatial Patterns in Correlates of IQ,” Intelligence 39.5 (September–October): 303–310.
Kenny, Charles. 2012. “Dumb and Dumber: Are Development Experts Becoming Racists?,” April 30, Foreign Policy
Lynn, Richard and Tatu Vanhanen. 2002. IQ and the Wealth of Nations. Praeger, Westport, Conn. and London.
Nijenhuis, Jan te, Cho, Sun Hee, Murphy, Raegan and Kun Ho Lee. 2011. “The Flynn Effect in Korea: Large Gains,” Personality and Individual Differences 53.2: 2012: 147–151.
Palairet, M. R. 2004. “IQ and the Wealth of Nations,” Heredity 92.4: 361–362.
Richardson, K. 2004. “IQ and the Wealth of Nations,” Heredity 92.4: 359–360.
Unz, Ron, 2012. “Race, IQ, and Wealth,” The American Conservative, July 18, 2012.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/race-iq-and-wealth/
Volken, Thomas. 2003. “IQ and the Wealth of Nations: A Critique of Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen’s Recent Book,” European Sociological Review 19.4: 411–412.
Ignoring the IQ angle completely, let's focus on the message that the world is divided into wealthy regions and poor regions, and that this divide seems almost permanent.
ReplyDeleteOf all the developing countries in the world, how many have industrial growth rates high enough to bring them out of poverty? Truthfully speaking, a **minority**. Jamaica's economy has grown by only 25% since 1990, for example.
Using Ruchir Sharma's Breakout Nations as a source, here are some basic findings.
1) Only 1/3rd of all developing countries have EVER in their history grown at a rate of 5% p.a. or more.
2) Out of all the developing economies that ever grew by more than 5% p.a., only 3/4ths of them have continuously kept up the pace for two decades.
3) Out of all the developing economies that grew by more than 5% p.a. for two decades, only 2/5ths have continuously kept the pace for three decades.
Taking the cumulative numbers, and only one-tenth of the developing economies grow by more than 5% for three decades. This rate is only enough to quadruple the national income across 30 years. And if the population grows by 2% p.a., it is only enough to double the per capita income.
In other words, if Congo's PCI is to go from $400 to $800 in 30 years, it has only a 10% chance of achieving just that measly figure.
Therefore, when we look at economic success stories - Brazil, South Korea, Russia, Japan, and especially Angola - we find that they are a part of a rare 10% minority that have ever succeeded.
It is quite obvious. To expand jobs and incomes, you need investment. To get that investment, you need a lot of savings. And to get those savings, you need jobs and incomes. This is not a mystery.
Much of the poor world is likely to remain poor. What better proof than the fact that several ex-Soviet republics lost 25-50% of their GDP upon the end of Soviet rule, as Russian investment ceased to enter such depressed rural regions? There was not enough domestic capital in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan,.etc to sustain the standard of living that the Soviets brought them.
"Of all the developing countries in the world, how many have industrial growth rates high enough to bring them out of poverty?"
DeletePrateek: East Asia and now China.
Are you going to tell me that the millions of people in China and Japan are an insignificant minority?
In general, I recommend Ha Joon Chang on development economics.
I could just as well ask you:
DeleteWhat about Jamaica? What about Haiti? What about Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria, Niger, Mali, Ghana, or the rest of West Africa? What about Central African Republic, Zimbabwe, Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, or the rest of Central Africa? What about Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and other non-East Asian parts of Asia?
Many of these have inadequate growth rates, going down to 4% p.a. or below!
The aggregate population of all the countries I mentioned easily comprise a large enough sample to show that Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China are indeed an exception that proves the rule.
If we look into India itself, only a minority of the states, such as Punjab or Maharashtra have performed in double digit rates for about 40 years, whereas the likes of Bihar and Orissa have been left in complete stagnation.
That's because the resource and climate differences obviously ensure that Bihar can never be a Punjab. And to overcome those resource and climate differences, a lot of private investment is required - investment which only arises in and goes to rich states like Punjab.
With political and social stability, the right policies - especially at the international level - would allow many of these nations to develop, I would bet.
DeleteAnd if you have growth rates of over 5% for 3 decades, that is all what is required for industrial take off.
Oh, and while we are on this topic, the Republic of India has recently encountered a slowdown in its growth rates, falling below 5% annualized in some months.
ReplyDeleteI had thought South Asia's economic misery would slowly come to an end with time if people's incomes here kept growing at extraordinary rates. But these extraordinary rates were not meant to last.
South East Asian economies like Indonesia also had such high prospects before the Asian crisis of 1997. People there thought it would go on forever, but it also all came down spectacularly.
So it seems that high growth rates are rarely sustainable in the long run.
In which case, Lynn's claim that "the world is divided into rich and poor countries", that "it will be impossible to achieve economic equality between nations", and that it is "impossible to equalize economic conditions in different parts of the world" - all these seem to hold true.
But not for the reasons they claim, of course.
"South East Asian economies like Indonesia also had such high prospects before the Asian crisis of 1997. People there thought it would go on forever, but it also all came down spectacularly"
DeleteThat is because a significant factor in the East Asian boom in the 1990s was nothing but short term speculative capital inflows ("hot money") driving real and financial asset market bubbles: this is just Hyman Minsky's FIH all over again.
"So it seems that high growth rates are rarely sustainable in the long run."
Japan? South Korea? Taiwan? China?
I reject that idea that it will be "impossible to achieve economic equality between nations".
For one: who on earth knows what human technology will be like in 40 or 50 years?
While I am not one of these technology cultists like followers of Ray Kurzweil (with his "singularity" forecasts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity), nevertheless I think technology will probably overcome a good many development problems this century.
Prateek: So it seems that high growth rates are RARELY sustainable in the long run.
DeleteLK: Japan? South Korea? Taiwan? China?
As Prateek earlier posted: "Taking the cumulative numbers, only one-tenth of the developing economies grew by more than 5% for three decades."
Ten percent. What percentage is your benchmark for "rare"?
"To my mind, one of most bizarre and questionable findings of the book was that Qatar (a country with a high GDP and per capita GDP) only had an average IQ of 78."
ReplyDeleteWhy should Qatar's GDP and per capita GDP have an impact on it's citizens' average IQ?
Qatar's sample does have problems: it's small, outdated, and is drawn from 12 year olds rather than adults. However, given Qatar's poor performance on the PISA, the IQ estimate seems plausible.
http://www.moe.gov.sg/media/press/files/2010/annex-pisa-2010.pdf
PISA isn't an exact proxy for IQ, but the two are highly correlated: http://anepigone.blogspot.com/2008/10/international-student-assessments.html
"Why should Qatar's GDP and per capita GDP have an impact on it's citizens' average IQ? "
ReplyDeleteYou have got it the wrong way around: Lynn and Vanhanen argue IQ drives per capita GDP.
It is "bizarre" because Qatar has the highest real per capita GDP on earth:
1 Qatar 102,943 2011
2 Luxembourg 80,119 2011
3 Singapore 59,711 2011
4 Norway 53,471 2011
5 Brunei 49,384 2011
— Hong Kong 49,137 2011
6 United States 48,387 2011
7 United Arab Emirates 48,158 2011
8 Switzerland 43,370 2011
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_capita
Does an average IQ of 78 not blatantly contradict Lynn and Vanhanen's own central thesis?
Of course it does: already it has to be admitted that lucrative resource endowments like energy can make your nation rich, despite IQ levels.
I say it is "questionable" because, as you say, "Qatar's sample does have problems: it's small, outdated, and is drawn from 12 year olds rather than adults."
And another point: the OECD average PISA score (2011) is 492 (OECD Economic Surveys: United Kingdom 2011, p. 108).
ReplyDeleteSome quick research shows the best schools in Qatar have exceeded that average:
http://qatarskeptic.blogspot.com/2011/03/qatar-and-pisa-test.html
Yet the overall average for Qatar is still well below the OECD average:
556 600 575 Shanghai (highest results of all participants)
536 541 554 Finland
520 529 539 Japan
524 527 529 Canada
500 487 502 United States
493 496 501 OCED average
494 492 514 UK
464 445 454 Turkey
431 421 438 UAE
425 419 416 Mexico (lowest scoring OECD country)
414 404 422 Malaysia
413 381 402 Columbia
402 371 383 Indonesia
372 368 379 Qatar
http://qatarskeptic.blogspot.com/2012/01/pisa-2009-update-results-from-india-uae.html
The UAE has a higher score not too far from the OECD average, and well above Qatar, yet I am assuming that genetically these people must be similar. Some simplistic genetic explanation of the IQ differences doesn't work. Clearly there are other factors involved explaining the difference: probably education deficits, poor teaching or curriculum issues.
"Does an average IQ of 78 not blatantly contradict Lynn and Vanhanen's own central thesis?
ReplyDeleteOf course it does: already it has to be admitted that lucrative resource endowments like energy can make your nation rich, despite IQ levels."
L&V assert that "the difference in average national IQ is one major factor causing the national differences in GDP." They do not say that IQ accounts for ALL differences in per cap GDP levels. The fact that oil can also can make a country rich does NOT contradict their thesis.
A country with a low estimated IQ and rich natural resources can have a high per capita GDP. However, it's rare for a country to have both a low IQ and few resources to be rich.
How can averagely endowed and resource-poor countries countries become rich? Advanced technology must be a factor, right? Adopting, applying, and creating technology requires intelligence. Thus it cannot be a stretch to say that high average intelligence is "one major factor" contributing to economic growth. Right?
"How can averagely endowed and resource-poor countries countries become rich? Advanced technology must be a factor, right? "
DeleteCapital goods and advanced technology will be *imported* from the developed nations: they are not starting from scratch and reinventing the wheel, buddy.
And as for intelligence, how high an IQ does it take for unskilled and semi-skilled labour to work in manufacturing jobs?
Let's state this another way: are you wholly and completely denying the assertion that IQ is "one major factor" in causing national per capita GDP differences among countries?
Delete(1) The level of education and skilled labour is no doubt a factor in economic development.
DeleteBut even low average IQ nations have, most probably, sufficient people with high levels of education and skilled labour, since we are talking about an average, not a uniform level. The "average" job even in an industrial economy does not require IQs of even 100:
http://anepigone.blogspot.com/2011/01/average-iq-by-occupation-estimated-from.html
(2) The US industrialiased with an average IQ, in modern terms, of 76.
These low average IQs are not an impediment to industrialisation and economic development.
Lord Keynes,
ReplyDeleteRight on about Prof. Chang. This reminds me of the cultural arguments discussed in Ha-Joon Chang's book "Bad Samaritans." At one point the Koreans and Japanese were written off as dull and lazy. However, once industrial development occurred, those stereotypes went into reverse.
Biological determinism is the last defense of a failed status quo, which is why these IQ arguments are coming up in this, the twilight of neoliberalism.
fyi. This blogger has broken down National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, TIMMS, PISA and GSS results for third generation Hispanics compared to third generation Whites.
ReplyDelete"The differences ranges from 0.35 SD (GSS) to 0.77 SD (TIMSS grade 8 science). The average of the differences comes out to 0.61 SD or, when averaging PISA, TIMSS, and PIRLS tests scores per year, per grade (e.g., PISA 2009 MAth + Reading), 0.59 SD. This is not largely different from the general intelligence difference reported by Roth et al. (2001), which is notable given what was said about Spearman’s hypothesis. On re-analysis, Ron Unz’s claim concerning the difference in the GSS sample was upheld; this claim, though, was contradicted by all other samples."
In terms of the GSS he notes Murray (2007)
The decline in the B–W difference in the GSS vocabulary test for persons born since mid-century is entirely attributable to a decline in white performance,...
http://tinyurl.com/bqa3cx3
Lord Keynes, there is a wealth of information in this blog: http://menghusblog.wordpress.com/
ReplyDeleteI believe you may have debated with this person before on the issue of free banking. I recall you losing your composure, hehehe...
A wealth of nonsense is a more accurate description.
DeleteOn developing countries:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.aier.org/article/7605-among-nations-output-converges
The link, from the American Institute for Economic Research, points out the big difference between developed and developing countries:
1) Developing countries are not as industrialized, and tend to have grossly underused capacities (higher unemployment), due to low productivity
2) Developing countries also have less access to technology
The solution these countries have implemented were to simply move workers to higher-producing industrial and service sectors, away from agriculture, and adopt technologies already in use by advanced economies, dramatically enhancing growth.
Countries that did not do this suffered, like Somalia, with a pathetic 2.6% GDP growth rate during the last decade, and current unemployment at above 47%
Other African countries, like Sudan, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Mozambique grew faster, not because of their low bases (Somalia has a low base too...) but due to the above mentioned steps.
They have to do better however, by bringing down unemployment through boosting demand.