Prague Economic Papers 2011, 20(4):366-380 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.405

Checking the Czechs: Consensus and Dissention Among Czech Economists

Dan ©»astný
Department of Economics, University of Economics, Prague; and University of New York in Prague (StastnyD@vse.cz).

Traditional consensus surveys among economists seem to suffer from two shortcomings. First, they target the consensus issue in a way that tends to underestimate the agreement among economists, and second, they fail to offer information about how much economists' agreed - upon position matches the actual policy, which is what, ultimately, most economists care for most. In this paper, I introduce a redesigned survey that attempts to remedy both shortcomings at once by asking about preferred direction of policy changes in selected areas. Based on data from such survey undertaken among economists in the Czech Republic, I specifically ask about 1) the degree of consensus, and 2) the existence of a gap between such consensus and actual policy. The analysis of the survey data lends support to notions that 1) there is a solid, though not universally convincing consensus (regarding policy changes), 2) there is a gap in most areas of policy between what economists see as desirable and what the policy/makers practice.

Keywords: economic policy, consensus survey, transfer of knowledge
JEL classification: A11, A14, Z13

Published: January 1, 2011  Show citation

ACS AIP APA ASA Harvard Chicago Chicago Notes IEEE ISO690 MLA NLM Turabian Vancouver
©»astný, D. (2011). Checking the Czechs: Consensus and Dissention Among Czech Economists. Prague Economic Papers20(4), 366-380. doi: 10.18267/j.pep.405
Download citation

References

  1. Alston, R. M., Kearl, J. R., Vaughan, M. B. (1992), Is There a Consensus Among Economists in the 1990s?" The American Economic Review 82, No. 2 (May): pp. 203-209. "
  2. von Beckerath, E. (1956), The Influence of Economic Theory on Economic Policy," in Merton, R., Petersen, A. Science and the Economic Order. Frankfurt am Main: Metallgesellschaft, pp. 9-38. "
  3. Bell, J. W. (1945), A Report on an Experiment by an Ad Hoc Consensus Committee." The American Economic Review 35, No. 2 (May): pp. 422-447. "
  4. Block, W., Walker, M. (1988), Entropy in the Canadian Economics Profession: Sampling Consensus on the Major Issues." Canadian Public Policy/Analyse de Politiques XIV, No. 2: pp. 137-150. Go to original source...
  5. Brittan, S. (1973), Is There an Economic Consensus? London: Macmillan. "
  6. DiLorenzo, T., High, J. (1988), Antitrust and Competition Historically Considered." Economic Inquiry XXVI, No. 3: pp. 423-435. " Go to original source...
  7. Frey, B. S., Pommerehne, W. W., Schneider, F., Gilbert, G. (1984), Consensus and Dissension among Economists: An Empirical Inquiry." The American Economic Review 74, No. 5 (December): pp. 986-994. "
  8. Fuchs, V. R. (1996), Economics, Values, and Health Care Reform." The American Economic Review 86, No. 1: pp. 1-24. "
  9. Fuller, D. A., Alston, R. M., Vaughan, M. B. (1995), The Split between Political Parties on Economic Issues: A Survey of Republicans, Democrats, and Economists." Eastern Economic Journal 21, No. 2: pp. 227-238. "
  10. Fuller, D., Geide-Stevenson, D. (2003), Consensus among Economists: Revisited." The Journal of Economic Education: pp. 369-387. " Go to original source...
  11. Geach, S., Reekie, D. (1991), Entropy in South African Economics: A Survey of Consensus and Dissent." South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences 5, No. 2: pp. 63-86. "
  12. Harberger, A. C. (1993), The Search for Relevance in Economics." The American Economic Review 83, No. 2: pp. 1-16. "
  13. von Hayek, F. A. (1933), The Trend of Economic Thinking." Economica, No. 40: pp. 121-137. Go to original source...
  14. Hutt, W. H. (1936), Economists and the Public, Study of Competition and Opinion. London: Jonathan Cape. "
  15. Jewkes, J. (1955), The Economist and Change," in Economics and Public Policy. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1954: 81-99. "
  16. Kearl, J. R., Pope, C. L., Whiting, G. C., Wimmer, L. T. (1979), A Confusion of Economists?" The American Economic Review 69, No. 2 (May): pp. 28-37. "
  17. Knight, F. H. (1951), The Role of Principles in Economics and Politics." The American Economic Review 41, No. 1: pp. 1-29. "
  18. Leet, D. R., Lang, N. A. (2006), Is There a Consensus Among International Economic Educators?" Conference paper, available at http://www.csufresno.edu/cerecc/documents/leet_ASBBS_Consensus_paper.pdf "
  19. Pope, R. D., Hallam, A. (1986), A Confusion of Agricultural Economists? A Professional Interest Survey and Essay." American Journal of Agricultural Economics 68, No. 3 (Aug.): pp. 572-594. 28 On some aspects of the pattern of the gap as indicated by this survey, see ©»astný 2010a. Go to original source...
  20. Ricketts, M., Shoesmith, E. (1990), British Economic Opinion: A Survey of A Thousand Economists. Institute for Economic Affairs. "
  21. Rustici, T. (1985), Public Choice View of the Minimum Wage." CATO Journal 5, No. 1: pp. 103-131. "
  22. ©»astný, D. (2010a), Czech Economists on Economic Policy: A Survey." Econ Journal Watch 7, No. 3: pp. 275-287.
  23. ©»astný, D. (2010b). The Economics of Economics: Why Economists Aren't as Important as Garbagemen. Torino: Instituto Bruno Leoni. "
  24. Whaples, R. (1995), Where Is There Consensus among American Economic Historians? The Results of a Survey on Forty Propositions." The Journal of Economic History 55, No. 1: pp. 139-154. " Go to original source...
  25. Whaples, R. (1996), Is there Consensus among American Labor Economists? Survey Results on Forty Propositions." Journal of Labor Research 17, No 4: pp. 725-34. " Go to original source...
  26. Whaples, R. (2006), Do Economists Agree on Anything? Yes!" Economists' Voice 3, No. 9: pp. 1-6. " Go to original source...
  27. Whaples, R. (2009), The Policy Views of American Economic Association Members: The Results of a New Survey." Econ Journal Watch 6, No. 3: pp. 337-348.

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY NC ND 4.0), which permits non-comercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.