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How laypeople and experts misperceive the effect of economic growth

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  • Christandl, Fabian
  • Fetchenhauer, Detlef

Abstract

A series of four experiments were performed to examine the accuracy of estimations of economic growth by both experts and lay people, the factors that influence the accuracy of their estimations, and which procedures they use to make estimations. The results show that for actual growth rates higher than 1%, both groups clearly underestimated growth, and the underestimation was lower for experts than for laypeople. The estimations became slightly better when the task was presented in a financial investment scenario. Incentives had no effect on the accuracy of the estimations; however, a positive influence of the need for cognition was observed. Male participants provided more accurate estimations than female participants. The common use of different, and inappropriate solution procedures, accounted for the under-estimators.

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  • Christandl, Fabian & Fetchenhauer, Detlef, 2009. "How laypeople and experts misperceive the effect of economic growth," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 381-392, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:30:y:2009:i:3:p:381-392
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Ludwig Ensthaler & Olga Nottmeyer & Georg Weizsäcker & Christian Zankiewicz, 2018. "Hidden Skewness: On the Difficulty of Multiplicative Compounding Under Random Shocks," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(4), pages 1693-1706, April.
    2. Lotz, Sebastian & Fix, Andrea R., 2013. "Not all financial speculation is treated equally: Laypeople’s moral judgments about speculative short selling," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 34-41.
    3. McGowan, Féidhlim & Lunn, Pete & Robertson, Deirdre, 2019. "Underestimation of money growth and pensions: Experimental investigations," Papers WP611, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    4. Christopher Freiman, 2017. "Poverty, partiality, and the purchase of expensive education," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 16(1), pages 25-46, February.
    5. Jacob, Robert & Christandl, Fabian & Fetchenhauer, Detlef, 2011. "Economic experts or laypeople? How teachers and journalists judge trade and immigration policies," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 662-671.
    6. John Dawson & John Seater, 2013. "Federal regulation and aggregate economic growth," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 137-177, June.
    7. Haferkamp, Alexandra & Fetchenhauer, Detlef & Belschak, Frank & Enste, Dominik, 2009. "Efficiency versus fairness: The evaluation of labor market policies by economists and laypeople," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 527-539, August.
    8. Christandl, Fabian & Fetchenhauer, Detlef & Hoelzl, Erik, 2011. "Price perception and confirmation bias in the context of a VAT increase," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 131-141, February.
    9. Earl, Peter E. & Friesen, Lana & Shadforth, Christopher, 2019. "Elusive optima: A process tracing analysis of procedural rationality in mobile phone connection plan choices," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 303-322.
    10. Drews, Stefan & Antal, Miklós & van den Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M., 2018. "Challenges in Assessing Public Opinion on Economic Growth Versus Environment: Considering European and US Data," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 265-272.

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