tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7464708.post7107913324059146522..comments2024-03-22T06:05:36.544-04:00Comments on Kids Prefer Cheese: IQ and Law ScoffingMungowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02340064320347875601noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7464708.post-20907526332388267692011-05-05T10:10:21.607-04:002011-05-05T10:10:21.607-04:00Other studies show prisoners have lower IQs on ave...Other studies show prisoners have lower IQs on average than the general public, so IQ probably does play a part.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7464708.post-52728063983151219522011-05-02T21:11:19.150-04:002011-05-02T21:11:19.150-04:00@Mungowitz: The hypothesis John and I have is that...@Mungowitz: The hypothesis John and I have is that high national average IQ helps *create* "a national culture of rule of law, and voluntary cooperation." <br /><br />My 2008 paper, "Are Smarter Groups More Cooperative," was the first to find that high group IQ predicts voluntary cooperation among strangers. Other experimental work since then reinforces that claim. <br /><br />Since life, especially political life, contains many prisoner's dilemmas, I think this helps explain why countries that currently have high average IQs are typically richer. <br /><br />@Anonymous: Yes, as we note repeatedly in the paper, we're using Fisman and Miguel's data, and we're building on their work. But they never controlled for human capital measures. We show that national IQ predicts their corruption measure, and has additional explanatory power on its own. We run a variety of multivariate specifications. <br /><br />And we also show that years of education does great as a predictor of tickets--vastly better than Fisman/Miguel's corruption measure. <br /><br />Hence our title: "Human capital in the creation of social capital," an inversion of the title of a classic sociology paper.Garett Joneshttp://mason.gmu.edu/~gjonesbnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7464708.post-52318956658211477752011-05-02T10:46:09.238-04:002011-05-02T10:46:09.238-04:00Didn't Fisman and Miguel basically do this stu...Didn't Fisman and Miguel basically do this study in 2007? Except chalking it up to cultures of corruption rather than IQ?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7464708.post-54391849483015069122011-05-02T10:14:36.810-04:002011-05-02T10:14:36.810-04:00There's a fundamental flaw in the premise of t...There's a fundamental flaw in the premise of the study. What is "the law"? Is it (a) any and all statutes or (b) long established social convention? Statutes are frequently arbitrary and capricious - the whim of some legislator. <br /><br />I have first hand knowledge of people who are very respectful of (b), while sneering at (a).Tomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08574355302581451838noreply@blogger.com