IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cwl/cwldpp/2361.html

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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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..
    4. repec:pri:cepsud:99blinderkrueger is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2013. "Economic Experts versus Average Americans," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 636-642, May.
    6. 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.
    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. Sievertsen, Hans H. & Smith, Sarah, 2025. "Do female experts face an authority gap? Evidence from economics," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).

    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. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Jennifer Elena Feichtmayer & Klaus Gründler, 2021. "Global Evidence on Misperceptions and Preferences for Redistribution," CESifo Working Paper Series 9381, CESifo.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. Tim Munday & James Brookes, 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.
    10. Dilla, Diana, 2017. "Staatsverschuldung und Verschuldungsmentalität [Public Debt and Debt Mentality]," MPRA Paper 79432, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. Nils Brouwer & Jakob de Haan, 2024. "What Drives Households’ Knowledge about Cryptocurrencies?," Working Papers 799, DNB.
    15. 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).
    16. Lergetporer, Philipp & Piopiunik, Marc & Simon, Lisa, 2021. "Does the education level of refugees affect natives’ attitudes?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    17. Lergetporer, P & Woessmann, L, 2022. "Income Contingency and the Electorates Support for Tuition," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 606, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    18. Simon, Lisa & Piopiunik, Marc & Lergetporer, Philipp, 2017. "Information, perceived education level, and attitudes toward refugees: Evidence from a randomized survey experiment," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168280, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    19. Ehrmann, M. & Pfajfar, D. & Santoro, E., 2014. "Consumer Attitudes and the Epidemiology of Inflation Expectations," Discussion Paper 2014-029, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    20. Meta Brown & John Grigsby & Wilbert van der Klaauw & Jaya Wen & Basit Zafar, 2016. "Financial Education and the Debt Behavior of the Young," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(9), pages 2490-2522.

    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.