IQ and the Wealth of Nations

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IQ and the Wealth of Nations is a controversial 2002 book by Dr. Richard Lynn of the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, and Dr. Tatu Vanhanen of the University of Tampere, Helsinki, Finland, arguing that differences in national income are largely explained by differences in national intelligence. The book includes the authors' calculation of an average IQ score for each country, based on their analysis of published reports; their argument that national gross domestic product per capita is correlated with IQ; and their conclusion that the IQ differences caused the income differences.

Supporting IQ data

Central to the book's thesis, and perhaps one of its most controversial parts, is a tabulation of what Lynn and Vanhanen believe to be the average IQs of the world's nations. Rather than collect their own IQ data for the book (a potentially massive project), the authors base their results on an examination of existing literature, taking averages when multiple studies give varying results for a country. Thus, some of these figures are based on much more data and larger studies than others. They also adjusted the figures relative to the baseline of UK results, which was taken as 100. When the overall population of the sample countries is taken into account, the mean IQ of the "world" as indicated by these figures is about 90, which is different to the usual definition that the mean IQ of a population is 100.

It should be noted that there is no consensus that IQ is a valid measurement of intelligence. See the article at IQ for details of this debate, as well as the article Race and intelligence. In particular, note that most individuals in a given country will not have this average IQ, and that it is generally agreed that many factors, including environment, culture, demographics, wealth, pollution, and educational opportunities, affect measured IQ.

One common criticism is that many of the countries with the best average scores are those where testing (e.g. American SATs, baccalaureate examinations) is a crucial aspect of the educational process, and that many of these tests (esp. the SATs) have been shown to be very similar to IQ tests. In these nations, because students study extensively for the high-stakes examinations, it is quite possible that IQ scores are higher because people are subjected to frequent examinations for which they prepare extensively. See Flynn effect.

There are many difficulties when one measuring IQ scores across cultures, and in multiple languages. First of all, use of the same set of exams requires translation, with all its attendant difficulties. To adapt to this, many IQ testers rely on both verbal tests, involving word analogies and the like, and non-verbal tests, which involve pictures, diagrams, and conceptual relationships (such as in-out, big-small, and so on). Roughly the same results tend to be gained with either approach.

Country	Data
Hong Kong	107
South Korea	106
Japan	105
Taiwan (ROC)	104
Singapore	104
Austria	102
Germany	102
Italy	102
Netherlands	102
Sweden	101
Switzerland	101
Belgium	100
China (PRC)	100
New Zealand	100
U.K.	100
Hungary	99
Poland	99
Australia	98
Denmark	98
France	98
Norway	98
United States	98
Canada	97
Czech Republic	97
Finland	97
Spain	97
Argentina	96
Russia	96
Slovakia	96
Uruguay	96
Portugal	95
Slovenia	95
Israel	94
Romania	94
Bulgaria	93
Ireland	93
Greece	92
Malaysia	92
Thailand	91
Croatia	90

Country	Data
Peru	90
Turkey	90
Colombia	89
Indonesia	89
Suriname	89
Brazil	87
Iraq	87
Mexico	87
Samoa	87
Tonga	87
Lebanon	86
Philippines	86
Cuba	85
Morocco	85
Fiji	84
Iran	84
Marshall Islands	84
Puerto Rico	84
Egypt	83
India	81
Ecuador	80
Guatemala	79
Barbados	78
Nepal	78
Qatar	78
Zambia	77
Congo-Brazzaville	73
Uganda	73
Jamaica	72
Kenya	72
South Africa	72
Sudan	72
Tanzania	72
Ghana	71
Nigeria	67
Zimbabwe	66
Congo-Kinshasa	65
Sierra Leone	64
Ethiopia	63
Guinea	59

US states

In the same book, the authors also published average IQs for residents of each of the states of the United States. Due to the somewhat greater homogeneity of Americans as opposed the world population, arguments about cultural differences are diminished somewhat, but not entirely, for this subset of results.

In their 15th May 2004 issue, The Economist published the following data alongside the way each side voted in the 2000 U.S. Presidential election. According to this data set, nine of the ten states with the highest average IQ voted for Democrat Al Gore and the ten lowest-averaging states voted for Republican George W. Bush. The newspaper only semi-seriously suggested that the results proved that "Democrats really are smarter".

1) Connecticut 113

2=) Massachusetts 111

2=) New Jersey 111

4) New York 109

5) Rhode Island 107

6) Hawaii 106

7) Maryland 105

8) New Hampshire 105

9) Illinois 104

10) Delaware 103

11=) Minnesota 102

11=) Vermont 102