­­­­Garett Jones

BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism

The Mercatus Center

 and

Assistant Professor

Department of Economics

Center for Study of Public Choice

George Mason University

 

Curriculum Vitae

  

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As a macroeconomist, I investigate both long-term economic growth and short-term business cycles.  My current research explores why IQ and other cognitive skills appear to matter more for nations than for individuals. 

 

For example: A two standard deviation rise in an individual person’s IQ predicts only about a 30% increase in her wage.  But the same rise in a country’s average IQ score predicts a 700% increase in the average wage in that country.  I want to understand why IQ appears to have such a large social multiplier. 

 

The story is much the same for math and science scores: A person’s individual score predicts little about how she’ll do in the job market, but the richest and fastest-growing countries in the world tend to do much better on math and science tests.  If the IQ multiplier is even half as large as it appears to be, then health, nutrition, and education policies in developing countries should be targeted at raising the brain health of the world’s poorest citizens. 

 

An even more important implication of my research is that low-skilled immigrants should be allowed to migrate to the world’s richest countries: Low-skilled immigrants have little or no net effect on the wages of the citizens of rich countries, but their lives massively improve when they immigrate to these countries.  

 

In the past, I’ve worked on Capitol Hill and I’ve studied the monetary transmission mechanism.   I speak on policy topics regularly via Mercatus’s Capitol Hill Campus program and in other forums.  Recent media include Forbes.com, Fortune.com, Wisconsin Public Radio, and CNN.com.

 

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Selected Working Papers

 

The O-Ring Sector and the Foolproof Sector: An explanation for cross-country income differences

(Presented at American Economic Association meetings, January 2009)

PDF                             Presentation Slides

 

Cognitive Ability and Technology Diffusion: An empirical test

(Presented at American Economic Association meetings, January 2008)

PDF                             Presentation Slides

 

IQ in the Production Function: Evidence from immigrant earnings

(Forthcoming, Economic Inquiry)

PDF                             Presentation Slides                 

 

Are Smarter Groups More Cooperative?  Evidence from repeated prisoners’ dilemma experiments, 1959-2003

(Published in Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2008)        

PDF                             Excel file with all data

 

Dynamic IS Curves With and Without Money: An international comparison

(Published in Journal of International Money and Finance, 2008)

PDF

 

On Money and Output: Is money redundant?

(Published in Journal of Monetary Economics, 2007)

PDF                            

 

Intelligence, Education, and Economic Growth: A Bayesian averaging of classical estimates (BACE) approach

(Published in Journal of Economic Growth, March 2006)

PDF

 

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Current Teaching: Fall 2009

 

Syllabus for Economics 104: Principles of Macroeconomics

 

Syllabus for Economics 630: M.A. Mathematical Economics

 

(All course materials are on Blackboard)

 

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Past Teaching

 

Syllabus for Graduate Monetary Economics

Syllabus for Ph.D. Macroeconomics I

Syllabus for M.A. Mathematical Economics

Syllabus for M.A. Macroeconomics

Syllabus for M.A. Economic Growth

Syllabus for M.A. Time Series Econometrics

Syllabus for Undergraduate Public Choice

Syllabus for Undergraduate Economic Methodology

 

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Additional Writings and Presentations

 

The Great Recession

(Slide presentation for George Mason University’s inaugural Alumni Weekend, October 2009)

PDF

 

The European Economy in 2020

(Slide presentation to NATO-bound U.S. military officers at National Defense University, August 2009)

PDF

 

Economics of the Geithner Plans

(Slide presentation for the Mercatus Center’s Capitol Hill Campus series, April 2009)

PDF

 

Tax 101

(Slide presentation for the Mercatus Center’s Capitol Hill Campus series, March 2009)

PDF

 

Artificial Intelligence and Economic Growth: A few finger-exercises

(January 2009: A response to a discussion between Robin Hanson and Eliezer Yudkowsky at Overcoming Bias)

PDF

 

Imitate FDR’s Treasury Secretary: Bankruptcy not Bailouts

(November 2008: Published in U.S. Exchequer, pages 45-46)

PDF                             Link to U.S. Exchequer         

 

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Miscellany

 

An old photo of me at the birthplace of a leading driver of U.S. productivity.

 

What I did in the summer of 2008: I took this photo of my brothers in the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne, Yosemite National Park.

 

A 2006 photo of me backpacking in the Mineral King section of Sequoia National Park.

 

A macroeconomic revolution all in one photograph.

 

A photo of me in my office in Carow Hall. 

 

A TV series you really ought to watch. 

 

And another: The first sitcom inspired by public choice theory.

 

Another kind of spontaneous order.