Currently Smart Fraction Theory is subject of some discussion among the economists. The theory holds that the wealth of the country is heavily impacted by the fraction of the population that has IQ above certain threshold.
The following article adds another twist to it: it uses verbal IQ as threshold as it is argued it seems to account for East Asian GDP per capita lower than it would seem from using raw IQ numbers.
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/sft2.htm
I'm looking for solid (empirical) evidence that tends to support or reject this theory.