Do Economists Believe American Democracy Is Working?

William L. Davis and Bob G. Figgins

Econ Journal Watch, 2009, vol. 6, issue 2, 195-202

Abstract: Fresh results of a 2006 survey of members of the American Economic Association suggest that many economists do not seem to believe that American democracy is working—that is, advancing society’s welfare. Regardless of political party affiliation, a large majority of economists appear to be skeptical of elected officials and the political process. We discuss these findings in relation to what many, including ourselves, perceive to be a problem in the economics profession, namely, an undue focus on the policy status quo. If economists do not believe that the political process works well, why is there so much focus on the status quo, and, more specifically, so little challenge to status quo interventions?

Keywords: Economic surveys; status quo orientation; American democracy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A1 H8 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://econjwatch.org/File+download/250/2009-05-d ... sue.pdf?mimetype=pdf (application/pdf)
https://econjwatch.org/290 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ejw:journl:v:6:y:2009:i:2:p:195-202

Access Statistics for this article

Econ Journal Watch is currently edited by Daniel Klein

More articles in Econ Journal Watch from Econ Journal Watch Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jason Briggeman ().