IQ and economic success - intelligence quotient

People of different political viewpoints may legitimately respond to this presentation with policy prescriptions that are in polar opposition. In many ways, the Left has the easier task. These data are tailor-made for the conclusion that a Rawlsian redistributive state is the only answer. For its part, the Right must state forthrightly why it thinks that a free society that tolerates large differences in outcomes is preferable to an authoritarian society that reduces them. But though the answers may be different for those of competing political persuasions, the challenge is common to all. It is time for policy analysts to stop avoiding the reality of natural inequality, a reality that neither equalization of opportunity nor a freer society will circumvent.

1 The NLSY coding distinguishes between sibling and step sibling or adoptive sibling. As an additional screen, I prepared profiles for each subject based on the question that asks whether the subject was living with his or her parents at various ages, requiring that both members of a sibling pair reported living with their parents at birth and that the older sibling had consistently reported living with both parents in all the years up to and including the birth year of the younger sibling. I used the same profiles of answers to determine whether both siblings had lived together through at least age seven of the younger sibling.

2 Korenman, S. and C. Winship, "A Reanalysis of The Bell Curve: Intelligence, Family Background, and Schooling," Harvard University and National Bureau of Economic Research, rev. Aug. 1996. The data reported here are taken from Table 2.

3 Fischer, C. S., M. Hout, M. S. Jankowski, S. R. Lucas, A. Swidler, K. Voss, Inequality by Design: Cracking The Bell Curve Myth (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996). See Joel Schwartz's review, "On Inequality and Intelligence," The Public Interest, Number 126, Winter 1997.

4 Herrnstein and I were aware of this problem (see The Bell Curve, pp. 123-24 and 286-87) and assumed that our estimates of the independent effect of IQ were conservative.

5 Rowe, D.C., W. J. Vesterdal, and J. L. Rodgers, "The Bell Curve Revisited: How Genies and Shared Environment Mediate IQ-SES Associations," University of Arizona, 1997.

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