If Only the Public Listened to Economists!!!

Most readers have seen the results of the Kauffman Economic Outlook, a survey of scores of economics bloggers from across the Internet. Kudos to Tim for pulling it together.

Not to sound crankish, but I just wanted to highlight a couple of surprising (to me, at least) reactions the survey results provoked from bloggers:

"Less tax on income, and more on consumption, particularly of energy and emissions. Sadly, the public doesn't seem too keen on the concept."

"In particular, I think we understand better than the typical citizen the role that government health programs play in the outlook for the deficit. And I think we understand better than others that private-sector labor unions are no longer significant."

At the risk of oversimplifying or reading too much into brief remarks, these reactions can perhaps be summarized as: the public is idiotic, economists (and especially economic bloggers) are smarter than the public, so the public should listen more to economists (especially economic bloggers). Such inescapable logic--on the heels of a severe recession that many of these economists swore wouldn't happen just before it actually did--would elicit derisive scoffs from the non-economist-don't-know-what's-good-for-them average members of the public that it seems to be my misfortune to hang around with.

Comments

[Paul Kedrosky]

Nice scolding, Dane. You forgot to mention that the best part about listening to economists is that you get so many choices given all the unfalsifiable "on the one hand, on the other hand" waffling.

[Dane Stangler]

Thanks, Paul. I also wished I had included a reference to studies that have found "no evidence of any relationship between political knowledge (percentage of correct answers to factual political questions) and self-interest to explain policy attitudes." So all those well-informed economists may not turn out to be "better" voters than the public they criticize.

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Tim: As I wrote on my blog, Truth on the Market, I think Tyler is pretty far off base with this one. See http://www.truthonthemarket.com/2009/04/28/what-does-tyler-know-about-law-and-economics-anyway/