1) Paul Krugman
2) Joseph Stiglitz
3) Milton Friedman
Estimate IQ of these great economists
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What? Why the heck would he be in the top 300? I think you guys are confusing IQ with what it takes to be a great economist. Friedman was a great economist with amazing rhetorical skills. Bobby Fisher was a great chess player who was completely insane. I am absolutely convinced that Fisher would have blown Friedman out of the water in any IQ test. That doesn't mean that I don't think Friedman was great, or that I don't think his contributions where many times more valuable than those of Fisher. It just means that there is more to being an economist than having a high IQ, and if you have an extremely high IQ your comparative advantage is in doing things like math, physics and chess, not in economics.
When Friedman was in his prime, he was probably among the top 300 smartest people in the world (that is probably a reasonable)
If the world had about 3 billion people, being in the top 300 means an IQ of about 180. -
In the highest tiers of economics (upper tier Nobel laureate) IQ is the most important factor.
Friedman was considered a world class genius by everyone that knew him. And world class rhetorical skills depend on IQ as well. IQ has a verbal component.
In terms of brute IQ, in his prime, he would fieck Fisher rotten.
(also, Friedman was a genius statistician, with contributions on the discipline).
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I strongly believe that intelligence is an ordinal concept which doesn't allow for interpersonal comparisons. For every human being there exists an indefinite number of intelligence functions. The only restriction is that the intelligence function must assign lower values for stupid doings than for brilliant doings. This clearly follows from the revealed stupidity theory.
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Intelligence is usually defined as the capacity of learning new information, understanding complex ideas and solving new problems.
IQ tests are just an instrument, and while they are generally pretty good (many consider them the best thing psychologists ever created), they are not perfect.
For example, they are not very accurate after some levels. IQ tests are good up to the 130's/140's. After that, they are not very good at distinguishing people. So, an IQ test can point out that Milton Friedman is smarter than the average joe. But it can't quite point out who is smarter if you get Milton Friedman, Von Neumann and Bill Gates.
obs 1: IQ is more important for an academic than for a chess player. Chess needs some attributes that have some correlation with IQ, but IIRC, the correlation is not that great.
I laugh at the fool that said they are in the 130/140 range. Most of us here are in this range (at least the ones that are grad students/professors in decent departments). Stiglitz and Friedman are clearly much more intelligent than the median EJMR poaster. Mihai and GW are probably in the 160's, and I don't think they beat Friedman and Stiglitz in IQ.