Cross-Country Evidence on the Link Between Intelligence and the Environmental Efficiency of Well-Being

Abstract

Abstract. Recent studies have conceptualized sustainability as the environmental efficiency of well-being (EWEB). This paper makes an attempt to investigate the effect of intelligence on EWEB using data from 101 countries. Our results show that countries with high-IQ populations transform environmental consumption into well-being more efficiently. Moreover, we find little evidence in support of an inverted-U curve between economic development and EWEB, and thus our findings shed new light on the economic development-EWEB nexus. These findings are robust to the inclusion of additional explanatory variables and the use of alternative measurements of intelligence.