Garett Jones (born 6 April 1970) is an American economist and author. His research pertains to the fields of

macroeconomics Macroeconomics is a branch of economics that deals with the performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole. This includes regional, national, and global economies. Macroeconomists study topics such as output (econ ...

monetary policy Monetary policy is the policy adopted by the monetary authority of a nation to affect monetary and other financial conditions to accomplish broader objectives like high employment and price stability (normally interpreted as a low and stable rat ...

, IQ in relation to

productivity Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proce ...

, short-term

business cycle Business cycles are intervals of general expansion followed by recession in economic performance. The changes in economic activity that characterize business cycles have important implications for the welfare of the general population, governmen ...

s, and

economic development In economics, economic development (or economic and social development) is the process by which the economic well-being and quality of life of a nation, region, local community, or an individual are improved according to targeted goals and object ...

. He is an

associate professor Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''. In the ''North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is a position ...

George Mason University George Mason University (GMU) is a Public university, public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. Located in Northern Virginia near Washington, D.C., the university is named in honor of George Mason, a Founding Father ...

and the

BB&T BB&T Corporation (previously known as the Branch Banking and Trust Company) was one of the largest banking and financial services firms in the United States, based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In 2019, BB&T announced its intentions to merge ...

Professor for the Study of Capitalism at the

Mercatus Center The Mercatus Center is an American libertarian, free-market-oriented non-profit think tank. The Mercatus Center is located at the George Mason University campus, but it is privately funded and its employees are independent of the university. It ...

Early life and education

Jones was raised as a

Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into several ...

but left the church as a young adult. His grandmother was Jewish. He completed a B.A. in

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

with a minor in

sociology Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. The term sociol ...

from

Brigham Young University Brigham Young University (BYU) is a Private education, private research university in Provo, Utah, United States. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is the flagship university of the Church Educational System sponsore ...

in 1992. He did an M.P.A. in public affairs at

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

in 1993, followed by an M.A. in

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

in 1994. Jones completed a Ph.D. in economics at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...

in 2000.

Academic career

After holding a number of visiting scholar and other academic positions, Jones joined the faculty of

in 2007. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics.

Research on IQ and its role in productivity and economic growth

Jones started his research on IQ in a paper with Joel Schneider in 2006 that argued that IQ is a

statistically significant In statistical hypothesis testing, a result has statistical significance when a result at least as "extreme" would be very infrequent if the null hypothesis were true. More precisely, a study's defined significance level, denoted by \alpha, is the ...

explanatory variable A variable is considered dependent if it depends on (or is hypothesized to depend on) an independent variable. Dependent variables are studied under the supposition or demand that they depend, by some law or rule (e.g., by a mathematical function ...

of economic growth, thus agreeing broadly with the thesis advanced by

Richard Lynn Richard Lynn (20 February 1930 – July 2023) was a controversial English psychologist and self-described " scientific racist" who advocated for a genetic relationship between race and intelligence. He was the editor-in-chief of '' Mankind Qua ...

and

Tatu Vanhanen Tatu Vanhanen (17 April 1929 – 22 August 2015) was a controversial Finnish political scientist and sociologist. He was a professor of political science at the University of Tampere in Tampere, Finland. Vanhanen was a coauthor with Richard Lynn ...

in their book ''

IQ and the Wealth of Nations ''IQ and the Wealth of Nations'' is a 2002 book by psychologist Richard Lynn and political scientist Tatu Vanhanen.Lynn, R. and Vanhanen, T. (2002)IQ and the wealth of nations Westport, CT: Praeger. The authors argue that differences in nati ...

.'' The chief observation that Jones made, and popularized, is that national IQs have much greater predictive power for individual earnings than individual IQ. Jones' further research has been on identifying the causal mechanisms by which IQ might affect productivity and economic growth at a national level. One mechanism posited by Jones is that smarter groups tend to be better at arriving at and enforcing norms of cooperation. Jones has used laboratory experiments involving

repeated prisoner's dilemma The prisoner's dilemma is a game theory thought experiment involving two rational agents, each of whom can either cooperate for mutual benefit or betray their partner ("defect") for individual gain. The dilemma arises from the fact that while def ...

, combined with the

SAT The SAT ( ) is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. Since its debut in 1926, its name and Test score, scoring have changed several times. For much of its history, it was called the Scholastic Aptitude Test ...

scores of participants, to offer support for this hypothesis. He has also suggested that patience and

delayed gratification Delayed gratification, or deferred gratification, is the ability to resist the temptation of an immediate reward in favor of a more valuable and long-lasting reward later. It involves forgoing a smaller, immediate pleasure to achieve a larger o ...

might offer an explanation. Jones has argued that certain sectors requiring very high quality work and with very low error-tolerance can only exist and thrive given access to a high-IQ population, because in such sectors, it is not possible to replace a single high-IQ worker by multiple low-IQ workers and achieve the same output. Jones informally dubs such sectors "O-Ring sectors", in contrast to "foolproof sectors", where a larger workforce of people with lower productivity can produce the same output as a smaller workforce of people with high productivity. Jones offers a summary of his and others' research on the relationship between IQ and national productivity in an article for ''

The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics ''The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics'' (2018), 3rd ed., is a twenty-volume reference work on economics published by Palgrave Macmillan. It contains around 3,000 entries, including many classic essays from the original Inglis Palgrave Dictio ...

''.

Research on money

Some of Jones' research has focused on the role of money,

, and mechanisms to reduce the risk of financial crisis.

Books

Jones wrote the book '' Hive Mind: How Your Nation's IQ Matters So Much More Than Your Own'', which builds on his research on the relationship between IQ and national productivity. It was released in November 2015 by

Stanford University Press Stanford University Press (SUP) is the publishing house of Stanford University. It is one of the oldest academic presses in the United States and the first university press to be established on the West Coast. It is currently a member of the Ass ...

. He was the editor of the book ''Banking Crises'' (2016), produced for ''

''. His book ''10% Less Democracy: How Less Voting Could Mean Better Governance'' (alternatively titled ''10% Less Democracy: Why You Should Trust Elites a Little More and the Masses a Little Less'') was published on February 7, 2020. It is based on a 2015 presentation. On November 15, 2022, Jones published ''The Culture Transplant: How Migrants Make the Economies They Move to a Lot Like the Ones They Left''. He has described his books ''Hive Mind'', ''10% Less Democracy'', and ''The Culture Transplant'' as his "Singapore Trilogy".

Media appearances

Jones was a guest blogger for ''EconLog'' from September 2012 to April 2013. He has given his opinion on macroeconomic policy and financial crises on

CNBC CNBC is an American List of business news channels, business news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group, a unit of Comcast's NBCUniversal. The network broadcasts live business news and analysis programming during the morning, Day ...

and in various media clippings.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Garett 1970 births Living people American academic journal editors American economics writers Economists from California Brigham Young University alumni Cornell University alumni George Mason University alumni George Mason University faculty American intelligence researchers American macroeconomists People involved in race and intelligence controversies University of California, Berkeley alumni University of California, San Diego alumni