IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cwl/cwldpp/2361.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The People and the Experts: Alternative Views on Economic Affairs

Author

Listed:

Abstract

Are speculators driving up oil prices? Should we raise energy prices to slow global warming? The present study takes a small number of such questions and compares the views of economic experts with those of the public. This comparison uses a panel of 2000+ respondents from YouGov with the views of the panel of experts from the IGM at the Chicago Booth School. We found that most of the US population is at best modestly informed about major economic questions and policies. The low level of knowledge is generally associated with he intrusion of ideological, political, and religious views that challenge or deny the current economic consensus. The intruding factors are highly heterogeneous and are much more diverse than the narrowness of public political discourse would suggest. Many of these findings have been established for scientific subjects, but they appear to be equally important for economic views.

Suggested Citation

  • William Nordhaus & Douglas Rivers, 2023. "The People and the Experts: Alternative Views on Economic Affairs," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2361, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2361
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/2023-05/d2361.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:pri:cepsud:99blinderkrueger is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2013. "Economic Experts versus Average Americans," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 636-642, May.
    3. Author-Name: Alan S. Blinder & Alan B. Krueger, 2004. "What Does the Public Know about Economic Policy, and How Does It Know It?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 35(1), pages 327-397.
    4. Alan Blinder & Alan Krueger, 2004. "What Does the Public Know about Economic Policy, and How Does It Know It?," Working Papers 875, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    5. Author-Name: Alan S. Blinder & Alan B. Krueger, 2004. "What Does the Public Know about Economic Policy, and How Does It Know It?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 35(1), pages 327-397.
    6. Roger Gordon & Gordon B. Dahl, 2013. "Views among Economists: Professional Consensus or Point-Counterpoint?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 629-635, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Stefanie Stantcheva, 2021. "Understanding Tax Policy: How do People Reason?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(4), pages 2309-2369.
    2. Georgarakos, Dimitris & Kenny, Geoff, 2022. "Household spending and fiscal support during the COVID-19 pandemic: Insights from a new consumer survey," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(S), pages 1-14.
    3. Alan S. Blinder & Michael Ehrmann & Jakob de Haan & David-Jan Jansen, 2024. "Central Bank Communication with the General Public: Promise or False Hope?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(2), pages 425-457, June.
    4. Hayo, Bernd & Neuenkirch, Edith, 2014. "The German public and its trust in the ECB: The role of knowledge and information search," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 286-303.
    5. Hayo, Bernd & Neumeier, Florian, 2017. "The (In)validity of the Ricardian equivalence theorem–findings from a representative German population survey," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 162-174.
    6. Bennani, Hamza, 2018. "Media coverage and ECB policy-making: Evidence from an augmented Taylor rule," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 26-38.
    7. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2020_017 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Bernd Hayo & Florian Neumeier, 2017. "Public Attitudes toward Fiscal Consolidation: Evidence from a Representative German Population Survey," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(1), pages 42-69, February.
    9. Lergetporer, Philipp & Schwerdt, Guido & Werner, Katharina & West, Martin R. & Woessmann, Ludger, 2018. "How information affects support for education spending: Evidence from survey experiments in Germany and the United States," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 138-157.
    10. Bernd Hayo & Ummad Mazhar, 2014. "Monetary Policy Committee Transparency: Measurement, Determinants, and Economic Effects," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 739-770, September.
    11. Jennifer Elena Feichtmayer & Klaus Gründler, 2021. "Global Evidence on Misperceptions and Preferences for Redistribution," CESifo Working Paper Series 9381, CESifo.
    12. Bernd Hayo & Matthias Uhl, 2017. "Taxation and consumption: evidence from a representative survey of the German population," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(53), pages 5477-5490, November.
    13. Nathaniel P.S. Cook & Robert L. Underwood, 2012. "Attitudes Toward Economic Globalization: Does Knowledge Matter?," Global Economy Journal (GEJ), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 12(4), pages 1-20, November.
    14. Munday, Tim & Brookes, James, 2021. "Mark my words: the transmission of central bank communication to the general public via the print media," Bank of England working papers 944, Bank of England.
    15. Dilla, Diana, 2017. "Staatsverschuldung und Verschuldungsmentalität [Public Debt and Debt Mentality]," MPRA Paper 79432, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Michael Ehrmann & Damjan Pfajfar & Emiliano Santoro, 2017. "Consumers' Attitudes and Their Inflation Expectations," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 13(1), pages 225-259, February.
    17. Lena Dräger & Ulrich Fritsche, 2013. "Don't Worry, Be Right! Survey Wording Effects on In flation Perceptions and Expectations," Macroeconomics and Finance Series 201308, University of Hamburg, Department of Socioeconomics.
    18. Cars Hommes & Julien Pinter & Isabelle Salle, 2023. "What People Believe about Monetary Finance and What We Can(‘t) Do about It: Evidence from a Large-Scale, Multi-Country Survey Experiment," CESifo Working Paper Series 10574, CESifo.
    19. Larsen, Vegard H. & Thorsrud, Leif Anders & Zhulanova, Julia, 2021. "News-driven inflation expectations and information rigidities," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 507-520.
    20. Nils Brouwer & Jakob de Haan, 2024. "What Drives Households’ Knowledge about Cryptocurrencies?," Working Papers 799, DNB.
    21. Bellani, Luna & Berriochoa, Kattalina & Kapteina, Mark & Schwerdt, Guido, 2024. "Information Provision and Support for Inheritance Taxation: Evidence from a Representative Survey Experiment in Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 17099, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cwl:cwldpp:2361. 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: Brittany Ladd (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cowleus.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.