IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/amerec/v60y2015i2p132-141.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Did Economic Literacy Influence Macroeconomic Policy Preferences of the General Public during the Financial Crisis?

Author

Listed:
  • Brent A. Evans

Abstract

Based on survey data including residents of all fifty states, I provide an analysis on the relationship between economic education and policy recommendations of the American public during the financial crisis. Mirroring the methodological approach set forth in Walstad (1997), I find that economic literacy was correlated with three of the six policies studied. Specifically, economic literacy is positively correlated with support for decreased taxes and a smaller government, and negatively correlated with supporting a ceiling on CEO salaries. No other personal variable, including race, gender, income or educational attainment, is found to correlate with policy preferences as frequently as economic literacy. These findings corroborate with Walstad's results, which were based upon survey data compiled 18 years prior.

Suggested Citation

  • Brent A. Evans, 2015. "Did Economic Literacy Influence Macroeconomic Policy Preferences of the General Public during the Financial Crisis?," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 60(2), pages 132-141, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:amerec:v:60:y:2015:i:2:p:132-141
    DOI: 10.1177/056943451506000204
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/056943451506000204
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/056943451506000204?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Sam Allgood & William Bosshardt & Wilbert van der Klaauw & Michael Watts, 2012. "Is Economics Coursework, or Majoring in Economics, Associated with Different Civic Behaviors?," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(3), pages 248-268, July.
    3. Franklin G. Mixon & Richard J. Cebula (ed.), 2014. "New Developments in Economic Education," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 15538.
    4. Stimson, James A. & Mackuen, Michael B. & Erikson, Robert S., 1995. "Dynamic Representation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(3), pages 543-565, September.
    5. Peter Temin, 2010. "The Great Recession and the Great Depression," NBER Working Papers 15645, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. William B. Walstad, 1997. "The Effect of Economic Knowledge on Public Opinion of Economic Issues," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(3), pages 195-205, September.
    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. Paul W. Grimes & Kevin E. Rogers & William D. Bosshardt, 2021. "Economic Education and Household Financial Outcomes during the Financial Crisis," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-12, July.

    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. Javdani, Moshen & Chang, Ha-Joon, 2019. "Who Said or What Said? Estimating Ideological Bias in Views Among Economists," MPRA Paper 91958, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Paul W. Grimes & Kevin E. Rogers & William D. Bosshardt, 2021. "Economic Education and Household Financial Outcomes during the Financial Crisis," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-12, July.
    3. Isabel Busom & Cristina Lopez-Mayan & Judith Panadés, 2017. "Students' persistent preconceptions and learning economic principles," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(2), pages 74-92, April.
    4. Amélie Goossens & Pierre-Guillaume Méon, 2015. "The Belief that Market Transactions Are Mutually Beneficial: A Comparison of the Views of Students in Economics and Other Disciplines," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(2), pages 121-134, April.
    5. 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.
    6. Armèn Hakhverdian, 2009. "Capturing Government Policy on the Left–Right Scale: Evidence from the United Kingdom, 1956–2006," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 57(4), pages 720-745, December.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. Sami Diaf & Jörg Döpke & Ulrich Fritsche & Ida Rockenbach, 2020. "Sharks and minnows in a shoal of words: Measuring latent ideological positions of German economic research institutes based on text mining techniques," Macroeconomics and Finance Series 202001, University of Hamburg, Department of Socioeconomics.
    11. Niklas Harring & Sverker C. Jagers, 2013. "Should We Trust in Values? Explaining Public Support for Pro-Environmental Taxes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-18, January.
    12. Christopher J Williams, 2016. "Issuing reasoned opinions: The effect of public attitudes towards the European Union on the usage of the 'Early Warning System'," European Union Politics, , vol. 17(3), pages 504-521, September.
    13. Philip Du Caju & Guillaume Périlleux & François Rycx & Ilan Tojerow, 2021. "A Bigger House at the Cost of an Empty Fridge? The Effect of Households' Indebtedness on Their Consumption: Micro-Evidence Using Belgian HFCS Data," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2021008, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    14. Marina Riem, 2017. "Essays on the Behavior of Firms and Politicians," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 73.
    15. Borce Trenovski & Biljana Tashevska & Suzana Makreshanska, 2015. "The Global Economic Crisis - What Should Not Be Forgotten," Journal Articles, Center For Economic Analyses, pages 99-112, June.
    16. Hendrik P. van Dalen, 2019. "Values of Economists Matter in the Art and Science of Economics," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(3), pages 472-499, August.
    17. Alois Guger, 2012. "Einkommensverteilung als Krisenursache," Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft - WuG, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik, vol. 38(2), pages 345-356.
    18. Jelle Koedam, 2021. "Avoidance, ambiguity, alternation: Position blurring strategies in multidimensional party competition," European Union Politics, , vol. 22(4), pages 655-675, December.
    19. Christopher Magee, 2009. "Do Professors’ Opinions Affect Students?," Forum for Social Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(2-3), pages 135-151, January.
    20. Joshua C. Hall, 2017. "A "Model" Model: McCloskey and the Craft of Economics," Working Papers 17-09, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.

    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:sae:amerec:v:60:y:2015:i:2:p:132-141. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/aex .

    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.