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How much does intelligence predict lifetime income? A Meta-Analysis
Nguyenová, Van Anh ; Havránková, Zuzana (advisor) ; Bortnikova, Kseniya (referee)
Despite growing interest and extensive empirical research in economic returns to ability, a consensus regarding the true impact of intelligence on financial outcomes remains elusive. While psychology literature has made e orts to unify divergent findings, economics is yet to produce a comprehensive meta- analysis addressing this issue. Addressing this gap, our thesis utilizes cutting- edge meta-analytic techniques to analyze a unique dataset of 765 estimates drawn from 38 studies, providing a clearer picture of intelligence's impact on income. We uncover a notable positive publication bias, which, after correction, yields a diminished yet statistically significant e ect. Specifically, our results indicate that a standard deviation increase in cognitive ability results in a less than 10% increase in financial outcomes. Leveraging over 30 variables in our Bayesian and frequentist averaging models, we identify key determinants of this e ect, including the data collection year, outcome specifications, methodologi- cal choices, country-specific factors, and the number of estimates reported per study. Additionally, when adjusting for factors such as gender, residential loca- tion, work experience, and family attributes, we observe substantial variations in e ect size. JEL Classification J24, J31, D31, C11...
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