Mankind
Quarterly, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Fall 2007)
pp.
3-61
Cognitive Ability (IQ), Education Quality, Economic
Growth, Human Migration: Implications from a Sociobiological
Paradigm of Global Economic Inequality
Benjamin Wong
University of Toronto
Modernization theories propose that third world developing
nations will eventually undergo a transformational
process where
they will go from traditional agrarian societies to
industrialized
ones, eventually reaching the development levels of
Western, first
world nations. It remains to be explained why industrialization
has worked for only a small handful of European and
Pacific Rim
countries and has failed for most other nations of
the world in
South Asia, the Pacific Islands, Latin America, and
sub-Saharan
Africa. The 2007 World Bank Report Education Quality
and
Economic Growth demonstrates that education quality
and
cognitive skills, measured by international standardized
test
scores, are stronger predictors for national economic
growth than
educational quantity, measured by years of schooling
and
enrollment rates. This paper summarizes key findings
of the
World Bank report and finds that the intelligence
quotient (IQ) is
highly correlated with international standardized
test scores and
other indices that complement income levels as indicators
of
national well-being. As IQ is substantially heritable,
blunt
strategies directed at simple resource expansions
or institutional
changes are unlikely to be effective at reducing disparities
in
international cognitive skills. Imminent workable
solutions geared
towards reducing global economic inequalities continue
to
remain elusive. Implications from the consequences
of global
inequality are discussed in the context of 21st century
human migration in the West and Northeast Asia.
