This paper examines the relationship between national IQs and an index of socioeconomic development based on 47 indicators, and finds that it is strong. It also addresses various criticisms of national IQs. I would ask the authors to address the following minor points before I can recommend the paper for publication:

1. The authors write:

"Due to its implausibility, the estimate for North Korea (SDI = .98, which would make it the 47th most developed country in the world), was removed from the dataset, as it’s inconsistent with its very low GDP per capita.

This decision seems poorly justified. If there is reason to believe that North Korea's higher-than-expected performance on the index is due to fraudulent data then that would justify removing it, but a mere discrepancy with GDP per capita doesn't seem sufficient. The authors should provide more detail here.

2. The authors write:

"If the expected African IQ differs greatly from the observed one, then this difference is likely to be due to test bias or incorrect assumptions ... Using these parameter ranges, the expected IQ of Sub-Saharan Africa could be anywhere from 55 to 100, as shown in Figure 5."

This seems like a fairly pointless excerise, since we already know that the average IQ in Sub-Saharan Africa lies between 55 and 100. Elsewhere the authors suggest that an estimate of 70 seems plausible. The authors should consider removing this paragraph and Figure 5.

3. The authors write:

"In some cases, unweighted means are more accurate than sample size weighted means when the sample sizes of the studies are large, when the sample sizes are small ..."

The second comma here should be a full stop. There are several sentences like this. The paper needs an English check.

4. Lyman Stone has recently criticised national IQs in an article titled 'Fertility Really Isn't Dysgenic'. The authors should consider addressing his criticisms.