Is the type of government, weather and natural resources, or the average IQ more important in determining the economic success of a country?

[Kelley1]

The Philippines is one of the richest countries in terms of good weather and resources. The Philippines has a representative democracy modeled on the U. S. system. Their average IQ is 82. However, the country has a high poverty rate. This indicates that IQ is the determining factor in the economic success of a country.

In comparing North and South Korea; North Korea is rich in natural resoursed estimated at $10 trillion. That is far more than South Korea although South Korea has slightly better weather and more arable land. South Korea is a democratic republic while North Korea is a socialist dictatorship. The average IQ of South Korea is 102 and North Korea should be the same. South Korea has a per capita income 28 times higher than North Korea. This indicates that the type of government is the determining factor in the economic success of a country.

[abc3643]

Of those listed, natural resources, but the REAL answer has to do with geography; where you are located is going to have a huge impact on your success.

A variant of tour question and answering it was the central topic of the 1997 Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Guns, Germs, and Steel: That Fates of Human Societies" by Jared Diamond. A 3-part, 6-hour National Geographic / PBS mini-series was created based on the book.

I seriously encourage you to read the book and/or watch the series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i885hopsw6Ehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCBod2jFFyQhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ9espgY-Po

However, if you just want to watch a 1-hour talk with a Q&A session, C-SPAN has a video of the author talking about the book.

February 6, 2003
Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Author Jared Diamond talks about his book, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, published by W. W. Norton and Company. In it, he examines human history, including the effects of various factors on societies. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction. Following prepared remarks, he responded to questions from the audience.
www.c-span.org/.../guns-germs-steel-fates-human-societies

[abc3643]

* A variant of YOUR question...

[abc3643]

OMG, I forgot to include the most important URL.
www.jareddiamond.org/.../..._Germs,_and_Steel.html

[standardguy]

However, it is risky to adopt such a mindset. This approach absolves the population of any responsibility to strive for success by suggesting that they are incapable due to their IQ level. Additionally, the high temperature in the Philippines may impede cognitive function.

[Siri137]

This is my own personal perspective, but I believe the following factors are more important than the ones you list.

1. Corruption, at all levels of government, from the local to the national. Nations that have valuable resources like oil, but high levels of corruption, remain poor (ex. Nigeria, Russia).

2. General level of education. Ex. most W. European nations, and others like Japan, Australia and New Zealand, are rich because they have a highly literate, well-educated population, relatively-speaking.

3. The general population's openness to new ideas, which is directly related to point two above. Nations that are mired in ideological and/or religious ideologies (ex. Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, the United States) are at the moment going backwards in terms of their overall level of development.

[FreyaRed]

Cultural collectivism. The more cooperation happens between people in a country the more likely is such culture to become prosperous. Of course there are negative factors like warmongering neighbors which try always to conquer more prosperous societies, natural disasters, societal turmoils like system change... etc, which can even destabilize and destroy a society with high level of collectivism. However even if suppressed such cultures rise in few decades to their former status quo if it's possible to get rid of external threats.

[Zestyassmf1997]

GDP is kind of a worthless statistic once you understand how it’s calculated.

[abc3643]

The International Monetary Fund disagrees with you.

www.imf.org/.../gross-domestic-product-GDP

[Zestyassmf1997]

No it doesn’t. All that page does is explain GDP. If you’d read it, you’d understand why it’s a pretty worthless number.

[abc3643]

I did read it and I don't think it's worthless at all. If it was, economists wouldn't use it. Now, I do have to admit that, around 30 years ago, they shifted from primarily reporting Gross National Product (which is still used) to GDP.

This is from Investopedia:
"GNP is related to another important economic measure called gross domestic product (GDP), which takes into account all output produced within a country's borders regardless of who owns the means of production. GNP starts with GDP, adds residents' investment income from overseas investments, and subtracts foreign residents' investment income earned within a country.
...

The U. S. used GNP until 1991 as its main measure of economic activity. After that point, it started to use GDP in its place for two main reasons.

First, GDP corresponds more closely to other U. S. economic data of interest to policymakers, such as employment and industrial production, which, like GDP, measure activity within the boundaries of the U. S. and ignore nationalities. Second, the switch to GDP was to facilitate cross-country comparisons because most other countries at the time primarily used GDP.

The Difference Between GNP and GDP
GNP and GDP are very closely related concepts, and the main differences between them come from the fact that there may be companies owned by foreign residents that produce goods in the country, and companies owned by domestic residents that produce goods for the rest of the world and revert earned income to domestic residents.
...
"

[abc3643]

Forgot the URL from Investopedia
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gnp.asp

[Siri137]

IQ is also a worthless number, because like GDP it is completely misleading.

[AngryCarl]

@Siri137 Any figure is meaningless if you don't know what it's measuring. Here's one for you: 15.7.

See what I mean?