Comments for entry "My Views on the Dilbert Survey of Economists" at Dilbert.com Blog

Comment from lsmv

MonAMCDTE_Rndnd

Twenty years ago when I took a course in industrial policy, we discussed all the various ways that government can participate in the markets, and after finding shortcomings in all of them, the professor concluded the class be saying that supporting education was the most market neutral method by which the government could support the economy. This is why economists have such a strong support for education. It's not a matter of self-interest. For anyone who has studied economics it should not be a surprise to see that economists place the most priority on this issue. Also all of economics starts with the assumption that people behave rationality. For markets to efficiently allocate resources it is also necessary that market participants are well-informed. The very underpinnings of all of economics relies on an educated populace. Behavorial economics and common sense tells us people do not always behave rationally, but the closer the better from an economics point of view. Some of the most acrimonious arguments in society take place of matter of economics, yet in no place in are current educational system do we have a requirement that students study economics. So it is not surprising that commenters are surprised by what economists think, but it should be surprising that we still do not consider an exposure to economics to be a requirement to be an effective citizen in a democratic society.

Comment from Hemantsclone

MonAMCDTE_Rndnd

This is what the rest of the world that logs on to Dilbert.com learnt: 1. American Politics has matured indeed (Probably due to the Lawyers) 2. Every voter has just one vote. He/ She cannot vote on each issue. 3. A candidate cannot fulfil all the demands of the voter. 4. Voter realises that. 5. Candidate realises that too. 6. Candidate eliminates subject from the voters preference list that are not the candidates strengths. 7. One way is, carry out a survey. Candidate gets flying colors. Voters gives it a miss in the preference list. 8. Other way works too. If candidate is strong in one subject, split it into several heads and count each one separately. Fill the voters head with different shades of the same subject... Works on America, works everywhere...

Comment from grahampowell

SatAMCDTE_Rthth

There's a website that I think is misrepresenting your results, saying something like "Economists support Obama by 2-to-1 margin". You might want to set them straight: http://econ4obama.blogspot.com/2008/09/66-of-economists-are-economists-for.html Graham

Comment from tumidity

FriAMCDTE_Rthth

SPELLING FLAME! TEAT, not TEET! Or as a famous conservative !$%*!$% said: "It ain't the teat, it's the tumidity"

Comment from survey

FriAMCDTE_Rthth

I found the survey and the following discussion really interesting (especially because I am an economist). In particular, the conclusion by Dilbert that: â€œ[â€¦] you should expect [economists] to cross party lines when the data is clear and understood, and to lean toward party loyalties when things get fuzzy. That's how humans are wired. We like our team.â€ is really a good news to meâ€¦ Actually these Dilbertâ€™s survey result is really similar to the one I and a co-author got conducting a survey on Italian economists' opinions. Interesting, isnâ€™t it? If you are interested in our surveyâ€™s results have a look at http://micdimaio.googlepages.com/surveyofitalianeconomists Ciao, michele

Comment from larskj

ThuAMCDTE_Rthth

The suggestion of a control group of non US economists seems sound in principle- but based on the fact that the wast majority of foreigners (I'm in that gorup) hate Bush with a passion that almost religious I believe this would be a rather biased control group. Honestly I think that finding a dispassionate third party might be a little difficult. I also find the idea that people are university employees because they are lazy to be quite insulting- believe me most of the academics I know work harder for less pay than most of the people I know in the private sector. Mind you independent business people may work harder than both, probably they do. But if you are going to be lazy it requires a lot of hard work to acquire the tenure you need to be able to be lazy in academia. In fact the only way to be lazy id to acquire enough minions to do you work for you- and hence become a manager. Couse this is from a science background- I don't know if the social science guys do any work.

Comment from ortelius

ThuAMCDTE_Rthth

Nice survey, but slightly useless in some aspects. Well, economists can say something on "reducing the deficit" or "mortgage/housing crisis", but the "education", "environmental policy", "immigration" or "social security" are not economic problems, but political one. Also, the pro-democrat bias is obvious; the economists wasn't able to cross the borders of their "mind frame"... Anyway, who is responsible for all economics decisions in last 20 years? Are there only "republican" economists in the circles of political advisers? And if majority of economists are democrats, the proof of their incompetence is evident. Shortly, there is time to Change, and nor Obama, nor McCain are this Change.

Comment from Treetrunk123

WedPMCDTE_Rthth

I noticed my previous post got two votes. I appreciate the feedback. I won't be posting as much on this site, but I just wanted to say that the study was very professional and comprehensive. It would serve both political parties to take a look at this piece and learn how they are perceived.

Comment from DCat

WedPMCDTE_Rthth

First, thank you for doing this study. Second, it struck me as interesting that 20% of the Republican economists said Obama would do a better job, where as only 12% of the Democratic economists said McCain would do a better job. I wished someone could tell me whether it was really the case that the Republicans were more likely than the Democrats to say the other side's nominee would do a better job, or if this was just random noise. Then I realized I was someone: Okay, if I'm doing a normal approximation to a binomial distribution correctly (and it's been a while), then there is only a little less than 1 chance in 10 of getting this big of a difference from random noise. What that means, I'll leave up to you.

Comment from jell

WedPMCDTE_Rthth

Dude. The data "are". The datum "is". So let it be written. So let it be done.

Comment from Fire@will

WedPMCDTE_Rthth

I still don't know whether to laugh or cry! But thanks for doing this...

Comment from Mudley

WedPMCDTE_Rthth

When it comes to heath care, I wish the survey distinguished between increased coverage and reining in inflation. My personal sense is that the latter is far more important, and I think that is what many of the economists were thinking, but I think most people will believe they were supporting the former (increased coverage).

Comment from deirdres

WedPMCDTE_Rthth

Well, it is interesting to know that economists vote party lines, and they probably think and argue that way as well. We all see what we want to see. Might be useful to try to find a control group of economists, e.g. non-US citizens, to see who they think would be best. The Economist magazine gives an endorsement at every election, but it's hard to know which editorial voice that's coming from. To my mind, in this election both sides want to do expensive things - McCain, stay in Iraq; Obama, universal health care. Personally, I'd rather be spending public money on health care, but both points may be moot, given the state of the economy today and in the likely near future. All these billions in bail out money will have to come from somewhere, we're already up to our eyeballs in national debt, so whoever is elected will have little choice but to raise taxes, and won't get to spend them on either of their big ideas.

Comment from shagbark

WedPMCDTE_Rthth

Did any economists mention that it is unconstitutional for the US President to have anything to do with education or health care?

Comment from kh

WedPMCDTE_Rthth

Survey results make me think that economists know what everyone else thinks: that the job of President is almost too big for one person to make a difference. In todayâ€™s media environment, candidatesâ€™ true opinions are hidden, couched, spun. Who can know them? Best we can do is vote based on party platform, not on the person. Few politicians cross the aisle, and neither it seems, do many economists. No wonder so many voters pull the straight-ticket lever. We really donâ€™t have a lot of reasons to do otherwise.

Comment from Xorlium

WedPMCDTE_Rthth

Anyone who believes academia provides no competition is wrongly misled and probably has never been in academia, or never met anyone who has. Why do you express opinions on something you know nothing about?

Comment from tatsuke

WedPMCDTE_Rthth

@landoncz11 "It is easy to feel good about yourself for promoting a ton of expensive government programs for the less fortunate when you have plenty of money and a tax hike won't hurt your day to day life." I think you'd be very hard pressed to find an economist that thinks tax hikes are good things. The resulting market distortions are econ 101. There's an explanation somewhere, I just don't know where it is.

Comment from bbarber3

WedPMCDTE_Rthth

I think it's interesting to note that economic issues (i.e. Reducing the deficit, foriegn trade, etc. - theoretically, the one ones the economist would actually know more than you and me about) are the ones that the economist were more likely to cross lines on. Tells me that maybe McCain is the better choice on economic issues. Also, it's interesting that economist didn't think an economic issue was the top issue or even the second most important issue. I'm not sure why we should trust their opinion on which candidate would be better for education or health care, much less national security, immigration, etc. Again, why should we think they know more than we do about an issue that is outside their expertise? Plus, is 'Increase Taxes on the Wealthy' an issue or a proposed solution to a problem (the government needing more money)? I'm sure it's an issue if your wealthy.

Comment from tatsuke

WedPMCDTE_Rthth

I must say that I find it funny what people deduce from the data; mainly that there is a fundamental difference in the nature of the individual economists. ie Democrats are fat, lazy acamedics leeching off the tax payer, while the Republicans are greedy, corporate bigwigs, too busy slitting throats to have the time to participate in the survey. Second, and maybe this is my inferior Canadian mind, but doesn't this point out the absurdity of having such a strong allegiance to a political party? How can a rational economist say to himself, "Well, I'm a Democrat, but I disagree with my candidate on 75% of the economic issues." Why bother calling yourself a Democrat? Isn't the idea to agree on as many issues as possible? (I understand there's more to it than the economic issues, but you'd figure an economist would prioritize economic issues more than the average person)

Comment from Nakram

WedPMCDTE_Rthth

Reading this, I have a feeling you're trying to figure out which points from the survey comfort you in your existing position about McCain more than the opposite, trying to figure out who to vote for based on unbiased data. This is also reinforced by your lack of comment on the fact that you wrote " Among Independents, things are less clear, with 54% thinking that in the long run there would either be no difference between the candidates or McCain would do better." which clearly is biased towards mcCain (after all, if you had said the same for Obama, it would have been "61% [blah] or Obama would do better"). Also, there may be more economist in academia for the simple reason that, while there's a big need of accountants, there's little need for economists. As such academic tenure is the best option for an economist. That's not applied science. Thanks for the survey, even though I won't vote (I'm belgian), this thing shapes the world and as such has my interest.