Forum: Achievement, Intelligence, Creativity: Wisdom, Wealth and Intelligence

Jay L. Zagorsky of the Center for Human Resource Research at Ohio State University has been publishing some interesting papers based on a longitudinal study of the links between income, net worth, financial distress (eg going overdrawn), intelligence and other factors (such as body mass index).

There's an article in USA Today about one of the papers.

The study notes "a one point increase in IQ test scores is related to an income increase of $346 per year. But at most, that same one-point increase in IQ leads to a net worth increase of at most $83"

Is there any research out there similar to this, but which also lists what people chose to spent their money on, rather than saving it to accumulate net worth.  Did they give it to charity?  Have more children?  Educate their children better?  Travel the world?  Live a more luxurious lifestyle?

What about those whose IQ enabled them to earn a higher hourly wage, but who chose to use that to spend fewer hours working and more time with their family?

I have more questions than answers, but I'd be very interested to hear of other people's views in this area, or of related research. 

I am not able to answer in an economic way but if we take the ecological way you discover that the wisdom of nature is in diversity.  To seek a common behavior for a particular set of variable depend on the range of the constraints within which those variables can bind and build on each other.  A thin range (analogy with the polar climate) will allowed a low diversity of possibilities(few species in the polar region).  The large range(tropical climate) will allowed much more possibilities( highest diversity on earth). I hope the analogy can help your research.

Au revoir!