Kruse Kronicle

Economic Consensus

—

by

mwkruse
in

From Greg Mankiw: The Consensus of Economists. Based on a survey by Robert Whaples of Phd. members of the American Economic Association.

  • 90.1 percent disagree with the position that "the U.S. should restrict employers from outsourcing work to foreign countries."
  • 87.5 percent agree that "the U.S. should eliminate remaining tariffs and other barriers to trade."
  • 85.2 percent agree that "the U.S. should eliminate agricultural subsidies."
  • 85.3 percent agree that "the gap between Social Security funds and expenditures will become unsustainably large within the next fifty years if current policies remain unchanged."
  • 77.2 percent agree that "the best way to deal with Social Security's long-term funding gap is to increase the normal retirement age."
  • 67.1 percent agree that "parents should be given educational vouchers which can be used at government-run or privately-run schools."
  • 65.0 percent agree that "the U.S. should increase energy taxes."

However, Mankiw points out there was no consensus on the minimum wage.

37.7 percent want it increased, while 46.8 percent want it eliminated.

Comments

6 responses to “Economic Consensus”

  1. Virgil Avatar
    Virgil

    Wow…I am shocked by those results – generally speaking I’ve settled for the position that most people are clueless about economics and mob-mentality rules. In fact a retired economics professor just told me recently that his observations about Emergents is that “they don’t know anything about economics.” I kinda cringed at that but is there truth in it? 🙂
    I am not sure about the Social Security retirement age being raised, but I would have to see the actual question in the study to gage the result better.
    This is very encouraging!! Thanks for posting it!

    Reply
  2. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    You are welcome Virgil. I think you Econ prof is right about the Emerging Church converstation. In the haste to get beyond modernism I think they have mistakenly bought the propaganda that free enterprise is a creation of the Enlightenment. I hope to write more on that at my blog before too long.
    I sort of have one foot in and one foot out with the Emerging Conversation and part of its the wide shared antipathy for free enterprise.

    Reply
  3. Virgil Avatar
    Virgil

    By the way, Dr. John Evans (the retired Econ prof) has done some excellent writings on Economics and Prophecy. He writes a column for Planet Preterist, which I highly recommend. He also has a book out on the 4 Kingdoms of Daniel, that is a very good read.

    Reply
  4. Michael W. Kruse Avatar
    Michael W. Kruse

    Virgil, thanks for the link! I am pressed for time but I have bookmarked the articles and look forward to reading them.

    Reply
  5. dlw Avatar
    dlw

    How shd I put this?
    Economics is beset with group-think. It thinks its purpose is to come out with the “right” answers rather than to help people understand the questions and the options’ likely effects better.
    The Econ profession has its share of problems. The best work getting done today is interdisciplinary and applied work and yet the institutions at the top universities are geared towards preparing people for uber-mathematical theory work. There was an important study that assessed how well top econ depts prepared PhDs to teach or work in industry and found that they fell seriously short. Of course, hardly anything changed, because those at the top are not going to let the academic/market value of their human capital skills get devalued.
    The root issue is often times, are completing all the markets or removing all barriers to “kaldor-hicksian efficiency” socially optimal? The answer is, it depends on your social welfare function.
    dlw

    Reply
  6. Michael W. Kruse Avatar
    Michael W. Kruse

    dlw, my impressions match your observations as well. I just don’t see this in Econ. I think the group-think tends to be present in any number of fields. I get the greatest insights when I can bring a number of the fields into play. I also find study done by people doing multi-disciplinary work to be some of the most helpful.
    “preparing people for uber-mathematical theory work”
    LOL

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Michael W. KruseCancel reply

Discover more from Kruse Kronicle

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading