How important is intelligence to financial success? Using the NLSY79, which tracks a large group of young U.S. baby boomers, this research shows that each point increase in IQ test scores raises income by between $234 and $616 per year after holding a variety of factors constant. Regression results suggest no statistically distinguishable relationship between IQ scores and wealth. Financial distress, such as problems paying bills, going bankrupt or reaching credit card limits, is related to IQ scores not linearly but instead in a quadratic relationship. This means higher IQ scores sometimes increase the probability of being in financial difficulty.
One could also phrase this as: “if we control for factors which we know to because by intelligence, such as highest level of education, then mirabile dictu! intelligence no longer increases income or wealth very much!”; or, “regressions are hard, let’s go shopping.”
In the XXIst century within wealthy countries, people work hard primarily to gain social status. We often make the mistake of tying up wealth with social status, but most of the wealthy people we admire are also consumed by their great jobs. Celine Dion is very wealthy, yet she would still give one show every single day, including week-ends. I think most professors would feel exploited if they had to lecture every single day. Bill Gates is very wealthy and universally admired, however, as we may expect, he worked nights and week-ends as chairman of Microsoft. Every year he would read 100 papers from Microsoft employees about the state of the company.
...For many, wealth is merely a stepping stone to intense work. This may explain why people with higher IQs are not wealthier (Zagorsky, 2008): high IQ people may have an easier time getting rewarding work so they need less wealth....I used to openly worry that robots would steal our jobs and leave most of us in poverty. I have now concluded that I was underestimating the pull of prestige among human beings. We will make up jobs out of thin air if we need to.
“Do you have to be smart to be rich? The impact of IQ on wealth, income and financial distress”, Zagorsky 2007:
One could also phrase this as: “if we control for factors which we know to because by intelligence, such as highest level of education, then mirabile dictu! intelligence no longer increases income or wealth very much!”; or, “regressions are hard, let’s go shopping.”
Apropos of http://lemire.me/blog/archives/2012/07/18/why-we-make-up-jobs-out-of-thin-air/