Home > Archive > Volume 56, No. 3 > This paper

Does IQ Cause Race Differences in Well-being?

Bryan J. Pesta

10.46469/mq.2016.56.3.8

Published: 2016/03/01

Abstract

Fuerst and Kirkegaard (this issue; hereafter, “F&K”) present comprehensive, balanced analyses of aggregate-level data (i.e., state, nation) for the people of the Americas. They report moderate to strong correlations between racial admixture, intelligence, and a global measure of socioeconomic well-being. One possible explanation for these correlations is that IQ mediates race/well-being relationships. In fact, F&K show that racial ancestry has essentially no effect on socioeconomic outcomes, after partialing IQ out of the outcomes. I received their manuscript on 9/15/2015, and I present the following evaluation of their findings, together with supporting analyses for just the USA.

   Download PDF