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gwern comments on New article on in vitro iterated embryo selection - Less Wrong
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~1% income boost per point. See this report for an almost identical analysis of the benefits of programs to prevent low birth weight. With very low discount rates/return on other investments they estimate a value of between ~$3k-14k for each 1% increase in earnings. By that metric (and metrics used for preschool interventions) it should be cost-effective in a few years but is not so now (particularly in the absence of any clinic offering an organized service).
If one has a higher discount rate (they use rates of 2-4%, and wage growth rates of 0-2%), like a typical parent, then it would not be appealing.
On the other hand, this isn't taking into account non-wage gains (health, longevity, institutionalization, marriage prospects, well-being).
Well, one problem with simply regressing IQ against income is that to an extent the gain is coming from what look like positional or zero-sum effects like displacing someone at an elite university; that's one reason I've been compiling relevant papers for a while at http://lesswrong.com/lw/7e1/rationality_quotes_september_2011/4r01 I am more interested in the marginal increase in net societal wealth from IQ; if all IQ does is help on play games better, it's not something I care about increasing.
Yes, probably, but part of the point of the analysis would be estimating what 'a few years' would be (5 years? 15? 30?); if sample sizes are growing exponentially to match the apparent exponential fall in price of genotyping, that looks different from a linear or log growth scenario (eg. perhaps from constant funding, or from datasets disappearing after a certain amount of time).
The numbers are higher if you don't control for education. Remember that on all the major theories of returns to education educated workers are more productive: learning (IQ helps to learn), ability bias (which is just saying that controlling for education understates direct IQ effects), and signaling. On signaling accounts the signals have to be honest enough that employers don't find it profitable to ignore the educational credentials.
Externalities are interesting, but hard to estimate (except for obvious individual-level things like net fiscal contribution, crime, etc), and probably not a primary focus for parents.
Yes. There are large samples scheduled to be online within 2 years that could give a 10x in sample size.
I'm not going to continue this thread any longer though, as many of the pieces should be addressed in a forthcoming paper with Nick Bostrom.
Alright, I'll wait for that to come out then.
Thanks gwern and Carl. From what you've said here, my confidence that this is (at least in principle) possible now has risen. I do wish somebody with credentials would go on the record about it--I guess that's what your paper is for.