Economic Experts versus Average Americans

Paola Sapienza and Luigi Zingales

American Economic Review, 2013, vol. 103, issue 3, 636-42

Abstract: We compare answers to policy questions by economic experts and a representative sample of the US population. We find a 35 percentage point difference between the two groups. This gap is only partially explained by differences in ideological or personal characteristics of the two samples. Interestingly, the difference is the largest on the questions where economists agree the most and where there is the largest amount of literature. Informing people of the expert opinions does not seem to have much of an impact. Ordinary people seem to be skeptical of the implicit assumptions embedded into the economists' answers.

JEL-codes: A11 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.103.3.636
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (75)

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