National IQ and innovational activity of a country

In the contemporary world, the role of a country is determined to a significant degree by its innovational activity. The relationship between innovational activity of a country and its national IQ was examined in a number of studies. It was shown that such measures of innova-tional activity as high-technology exports and patent rate correlate with national IQ. These studies, however, analyzed the relationships between measures of innovational activity and national IQ as linear and did not investigate the changes of innovational activity measures over time. The present study deals with these topics. The relationships of national IQ with four measures of innovational activity (number of professionals engaged in research and development activity per million people, percentage of high-technology exports in manufactured exports, high-technology exports in US dollars, patent applications) were examined. Two additional variables were government effectiveness and corruption in a country. While the relationships of national IQ with government effectiveness and corruption are mainly linear, its relationships with the measures of innovational activity are not. Separate analysis was conducted for countries with national IQ equal 95 or higher. Its results show that national IQ is an effective predictor of such measures as high-technology exports and patent rate, while government effectiveness is an effective predictor of the number of professionals in research and development. The investigation of the changes of measures of innovational activity over time included estimation of their stability and examination of their relationships with national IQ. The change of the number of professionals in research and development is characterized by stability in most countries. This variable has low positive relationship with national IQ, it relationships with government effectiveness and corruption in a country is stronger. This, along with the results of correlational analysis for countries with national IQ equal to 95 and higher, points to independent contribution of government effectiveness and the level of corruption to innovational activity of a country. The measure of high-technology exports in US dollars is also a stable, although to a much lesser extent, measure. Unlike the previous one, the changes of this measure are determined mainly by national IQ. Other two measures of innovational activity are not stable and not related with national IQ. Additionally, compliance of national IQ in Russia with its innovational activity was examined. The change of the number of professionals in research and development in Russia does not match its national IQ. This may be attributed to low government effectiveness and high level of corruption in the country.

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