IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ejw/journl/v7y2010i3p288-319.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Economist Petitions: Ideology Revealed

Author

Listed:
  • David Hedengren
  • Daniel B. Klein
  • Carrie Milton

Abstract

We report on 35 US-based economist petitions from 1994 to 2009, featuring 10,792 signatures and 6,030 signatories. We separate the 35 petitions into three categories: 15 liberty-augmenting (or liberal) petitions, 13 liberty-reducing (or interventionist) petitions, and 7 in a category called other. We analyze the data by individual, school, state, and gender. The most remarkable finding is how little crossover there is by individual between liberal and interventionist signing activity: Almost all active petition signers lean heavily toward either liberalism or interventionism. The economists most active in signing liberal petitions include Vernon L. Smith, David R. Henderson and Mark J. Perry. Those most active in signing interventionist petitions include Henry Aaron, Eileen Applebaum, Dean Baker, Peter Dorman, James K. Galbraith, Michael Perelman, Michael Reich, David Terkla, Christopher Tilly, and Thomas E. Weisskopf. We present information on many notable economists, including Nobel laureates. The schools that show the most signatures are George Mason University, University of Chicago, Stanford University, and Harvard University. We find a large difference by gender: Among men the ratio of liberal to interventionist signatures is much higher than it is among women. Note: The article PDF is rather large at 1.68MB.

Suggested Citation

  • David Hedengren & Daniel B. Klein & Carrie Milton, 2010. "Economist Petitions: Ideology Revealed," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 7(3), pages 288-319, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:ejw:journl:v:7:y:2010:i:3:p:288-319
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econjwatch.org/File+download/456/HedengrenSept2010.pdf?mimetype=pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://econjwatch.org/687
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philip Booth, 2006. "A List of the 364 Economists Who Objected to Thatcher’s Macro Policy," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 3(2), pages 380-392, May.
    2. Klein, Daniel, 2003. "Mere Libertarianism: Blending Hayek and Rothbard," Ratio Working Papers 29, The Ratio Institute.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Karl Beyer & Stephan Puehringer, 2019. "Divided we stand? Professional consensus and political conflict in academic economics," ICAE Working Papers 94, Johannes Kepler University, Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy.
    2. Jakob Kapeller & Stephan Puehringer & Christian Grimm, 2022. "Paradigms and policies: the state of economics in the German-speaking countries," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(4), pages 1183-1210, July.
    3. Ann Mari May & Mary G. Mcgarvey & Robert Whaples, 2014. "Are Disagreements Among Male And Female Economists Marginal At Best?: A Survey Of Aea Members And Their Views On Economics And Economic Policy," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 32(1), pages 111-132, January.
    4. William L. Davis & Bob G. Figgins & David Hedengren & Daniel B. Klein, 2011. "Economics Professors' Favorite Economic Thinkers, Journals, and Blogs (along with Party and Policy Views)," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 8(2), pages 126-146, May.
    5. Marcella Corsi & Carlo D'Ippoliti & Giulia Zacchia, 2017. "Gendered careers: women economists in Italy," Working Papers CEB 17-003, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    6. Asatryan, Zareh & Havlik, Annika & Heinemann, Friedrich & Nover, Justus, 2020. "Biases in fiscal multiplier estimates," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    7. Daniel Stastny, 2010. "Czech Economists on Economic Policy: A Survey," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 7(3), pages 275-287, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Niclas Berggren, 2009. "Choosing one’s own informal institutions: on Hayek’s critique of Keynes’s immoralism," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 139-159, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    petitions; economists; signatories;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A11 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Role of Economics; Role of Economists
    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ejw:journl:v:7:y:2010:i:3:p:288-319. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jason Briggeman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/edgmuus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.