Intelligence, Human Capital, and Economic Growth: A Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates (BACE) Approach

Garett Jones () and W. Schneider

Journal of Economic Growth, 2006, vol. 11, issue 1, pages 71-93

Abstract: Human capital plays an important role in the theory of economic growth, but it has been difficult to measure this abstract concept. We survey the psychological literature on cross-cultural IQ tests and conclude that intelligence tests provide one useful measure of human capital. Using a new database of national average IQ, we show that in growth regressions that include only robust control variables, IQ is statistically significant in 99.8% of these 1330 regressions, easily passing a Bayesian model-averaging robustness test. A 1 point increase in a nation’s average IQ is associated with a persistent 0.11% annual increase in GDP per capita. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2006

Keywords: Intelligence; Human capital; Economic growth; O47; J24; I20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10887-006-7407-2 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Intelligence, Human Capital, and Economic Growth: A Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates (BACE) Approach (2005)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jecgro:v:11:y:2006:i:1:p:71-93

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Growth is edited by Oded Galor

More articles in Journal of Economic Growth from Springer
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().