About
- Ford Professor of Economics
- Co-Director, MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future (2018-present)
- Co-Director, NBER Labor Studies Program (2017-present)
Voting History
Question A: Matching US import tariffs to the tariffs, value-added taxes and non-tariff barriers imposed on US goods by other countries would substantially reduce the US trade deficit.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
6 |
Disagree |
5 |
|
Question B: The threat of retaliation against the imposition of higher tariffs on a country’s exports substantially lowers the probability of a trade war.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: But seemingly not enough at present. The main thing that seems to reduce Trump's appetite for a trade war is the adverse stock market reaction.
|
Question C: In the event that the threat of retaliation does not deter the imposition of tariffs, the economies of countries subject to higher tariffs on their exports would be measurably better off by responding with targeted tariffs on imports from the first mover.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: In theory, this makes them worse off still. In practice, this may be necessary to discipline the first mover.
|
Question A: The president has signed an executive order that pauses enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Permanently ending US enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act will substantially increase global levels of bribery and corruption.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: The U.S. is a norm-setter for the democratic world. The new message is: corruption is how we will all do business.
|
Question B: Permanently ending US enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act will substantially improve US businesses' long-term profits and long-term competitiveness.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Disagree |
5 |
Comment: I know of no evidence on this question. But if corruption raises profitability, I'm not sure that these are 'normal economic profits' or simply rents. And if they're rents, ending FCPA encourages rent-seeking. Rents are not by definition harmful, but rent-seeking surely is
|
Question A: The new administration has issued three executive orders related to energy and climate:
Declaring a National Energy Emergency: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/declaring-a-national-energy-emergency/
'The United States’ insufficient energy production, transportation, refining, and generation constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to our Nation’s economy, national security, and foreign policy. In light of these findings, I hereby declare a national emergency.'
Insufficient energy production, transportation, refining, and generation constitute a substantial threat to the US economy.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Disagree |
8 |
Disagree |
7 |
Comment: The US is the world's largest gasoline exporter, and a net energy exporter. How could we be it that we are facing a domestic energy crisis or shortage?
-see background information here |
Question B: Unleashing American Energy: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/unleashing-american-energy/
'The calculation of the “social cost of carbon” is marked by logical deficiencies, a poor basis in empirical science, politicization, and the absence of a foundation in legislation… rendering the United States economy internationally uncompetitive… the Administrator of the EPA shall issue guidance to address these harmful and detrimental inadequacies, including consideration of eliminating the “social cost of carbon” calculation from any Federal permitting or regulatory decision.'
Eliminating the ‘social cost of carbon’ calculation from any Federal permitting or regulatory decision would substantially improve the international competitiveness of the US economy.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Disagree |
10 |
Disagree |
6 |
Comment: This is pure ideological backlash from people who categorically reject scientific conclusions when the science is inconvenient. These are the same people who believe that windmills cause cancer and that DEI causes plane crashes.
|
Question C: Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/putting-america-first-in-international-environmental-agreements/
'In recent years, the United States has purported to join international agreements and initiatives that do not reflect our country’s values or our contributions to the pursuit of economic and environmental objectives… The United States Ambassador to the United Nations shall immediately submit formal written notification of the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.'
Withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement will deliver a measurable boost to US economic growth over the next four years.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Disagree |
5 |
Comment: In the short run, creating more pollution without heed to longterm health or climate consequences will probably increase growth, just like taking a dose of a methamphetamine will bring on temporary euphoria.
|
Question A: California's insurance industry regulator issued statements shortly before and shortly after the recent wildfires started (on December 30, 2024, and January 9, 2025):
https://www.insurance.ca.gov/0400-news/0100-press-releases/2024/release065-2024.cfm
https://www.insurance.ca.gov/0400-news/0100-press-releases/2025/release005-2025.cfm
In the face of growing wildfire risks, price caps on insurance premiums have substantially reduced the viability of private property insurance markets in California.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: It makes sense, but I have no evidence to support the conclusions of "substantial."
|
Question B: A mandatory one-year moratorium on insurance non-renewals and cancellations would lead to a substantial longer-term reduction in the supply of private home insurance products and the number of households that are insured against catastrophic risk in areas of California affected by recent wildfires.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: It makes sense, but I have no evidence to support the conclusions of "substantial."
|
Question A: Doubling existing tariffs on imports from China of critical production components in solar energy manufacturing will provide a substantial boost to employment in the domestic 'cleantech' sector over the next five years.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
7 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: So far, we see no evidence that Trump/Biden tariffs have led to manufacturing rebound. Meanwhile, subsidies from IRA appear to be working well, as measured by dramatic increase in US manufacturing investment. Trump will likely eliminate those, however.
|
Question B: Disruptions to global supply chains from new tariffs and trade wars will lead to measurably slower global growth over the next five years.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: The challeng is the counterfactual. Trump inherited a great economy and is about to cut taxes (unsustainably) and remove regulations on critical sectors like banking and consumer protections. We will party like it's 1999. Harm from tariffs may be inaudible against background din
|
Given that much of the Department of Education's budget is allocated to postsecondary education (including Pell grants and student loans), closing the department would have no measurable effect on the average K to 12th grade school student.
Link: https://www.kentclarkcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/USDeptOfEducation_2024_Appropriations.pdf
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Disagree |
5 |
Comment: Without benchmarking or oversight by DOE, I suspect that states and will become heterogeneous in educational policy. Some of these innovations will be productive, others profoundly counterproductive. Few will be evaluated, so it will be difficult to know which is which.
|
Question A: The Trustees of the U.S. Social Security system currently estimate that the OASI trust fund will be exhausted in 2033, after which substantial benefit cuts are mandated without a change in the law.
The response to the impending exhaustion of the OASI trust fund is likely to rely more on general government borrowing than on increases in social security taxes or reductions in social security benefits.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question B: As in the most recent major change in Social Security finances (adopted in 1983), the most prudent way to address the impending exhaustion of the OASI trust fund would feature a balanced combination of payroll tax increases and reductions in the benefits received for any given retirement age.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
1 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question A: The institutions of society - such as constitutions, laws, judiciaries, and property rights - substantially shape economic decisions, policies, and outcomes.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Strongly Agree |
8 |
|
Question B: On average and over the long term, democracies deliver substantially better economic growth than other forms of government.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
7 |
Agree |
6 |
|
Question C: Countries where democracy and the rule of law are weakened are likely to experience measurable damage to their economic performance.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
6 |
|
Question A: The Democrats and Republicans have floated the idea of a US sovereign wealth fund. For background, see here and here.
Establishing a domestic sovereign wealth fund to invest in infrastructure, emerging technologies, and/or strategic sectors would bring substantial benefits to the US economy over a ten-year horizon.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Disagree |
6 |
|
|
Question B: The typical advanced economy could substantially boost growth by establishing a sovereign wealth fund to invest in infrastructure, emerging technologies, and/or strategic sectors.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Disagree |
5 |
|
|
Question C: For a typical advanced economy, establishing a sovereign wealth fund would be substantially better for citizens relative to paying down the debt as a use for excess revenue.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Disagree |
5 |
|
|
Question A: Capping annual rent increases by corporate landlords at 5%, as proposed by President Biden, would make middle-income Americans substantially better off over the next ten years.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Disagree |
6 |
|
Question B: Capping annual rent increases at 5%, as proposed by President Biden, would substantially reduce the amount of available apartments for rent over the next ten years.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question C: Capping annual rent increases at 5%, as proposed by President Biden, would substantially reduce US income inequality over the next ten years.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Disagree |
5 |
|
Question A: All else equal, making permanent the 2017 tax cuts that were set to expire at the end of 2025 would substantially increase federal deficits and the federal debt over the coming decade.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: I know of no tax cuts in US history that have paid for themselves. That doesn't meant that cutting taxes is always a bad idea. But the fantasy that they are free persists despite all evidence to the contrary.
|
Question B: All else equal, making permanent the 2017 tax cuts that were set to expire at the end of 2025 would measurably increase the rate of US economic growth over the coming decade.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Disagree |
5 |
Comment: The best evidence I've seen is that TCJA did increase investment. But given the size of our deficit and debt, there are more fiscally responsible ways to stimulate growth.
|
Question C: In the US, given Congressional budget scoring rules, temporary tax cuts generate sufficient pressure for extension as to be effectively permanent.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: Only a small minority of these have ever actually been allowed to expire, as far as I know. And of course, that's the strategic plan of those who propose them.
|
Question A: The lower willingness of private firms to go public, combined with the increased number of publicly traded firms being taken private over the last 25 years, is measurably net negative for economic growth.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
Question B: All else equal, reducing regulatory barriers (including reporting requirements such as Sarbanes Oxley 404) to public listing would substantially increase the share of publicly traded firms in the economy.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Agree |
4 |
|
|
Question C: The lack of transparency about unlisted private firms' financial performance substantially hinders the efficiency of the allocation of capital.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
Question A: Antitrust investigations of the dominant firms in artificial intelligence are likely to lead to substantially lower prices of AI products and services for businesses and consumers.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
7 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: The issue at stake is innovation, not price per se
|
Question B: Antitrust investigations of the dominant firms in artificial intelligence are likely to promote greater competition and innovation in AI.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question C: Potential harms from artificial intelligence are better assessed by market deployment rather than seeking to slow the pace of AI research and implementation.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
7 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: Not every dangerous product should be first released on the market, then assessed for risks.
|
Question A: The proposed US tariffs on Chinese EVs would lead to measurably higher employment in the US automotive industry over the next five years.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: Although at a _very_ high cost per job, these tariffs will probably slow the erosion of US auto manufacturing employment (including among entrepot manufacturers). The US auto industry is not prepared to compete with BYD. That's not BYD's fault, but it is the reality.
|
Question B: The proposed US tariffs on Chinese EVs would lead to measurably higher prices of EVs in the US.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: How could it not?
|
Question C: The proposed US tariffs on Chinese EVs would measurably slow the adoption of green technology by consumers.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: Have you seen those Chinese EV prices?
|
Reclassifying marijuana as a Schedule III drug would lead to measurably higher social welfare.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: This completely depends on which supporting rules are put in place fo oversight, distribution, access control, enforcement, taxation. Done well, this would improve on the current regime. But even our current deregulation regime is glutted with crime and foreign crime involvement
|
Question A: Tripling existing import taxes on Chinese steel and aluminum products would lead to measurably higher employment in the US steel industry over the next five years.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
6 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: The last round of Trump tariffs did not raise employment in protected industries.
-see background information here |
Question B: Tripling the tariffs would lead to measurably higher steel and aluminum prices for American producers and measurably higher finished-good prices for American consumers.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
9 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: Hard to see how this could fail.
|
Question C: The gains for the American economy from tripling the tariffs would measurably outweigh the losses.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Disagree |
8 |
Disagree |
5 |
Comment: This is not the sector to protect. It's a tiny number of jobs, large a moribund set of companies (certainly US steel), and a crucial input into many other domestic sectors. Not all tariffs are self-destructive, but this one is.
|
Universities that abandon temporary pandemic test-optional policies and return to requiring standardized test scores for admissions will create measurably enhanced opportunities for potentially high-achieving students from low-income backgrounds.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
6 |
|
Question A: The FTC is opposed to Kroger’s proposed acquisition of Albertsons. Critics argue that with sufficient divestitures, the deal would be consistent with past FTC policies.
Kroger’s proposed acquisition of Albertsons would lead to substantially higher grocery prices and/or lower product quality/services for customers of the two companies in locations where both are present.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Uncertain |
4 |
|
Question B: Kroger’s proposed acquisition of Albertsons would have a substantially negative effect on workers at the two companies in locations where both are present.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question A: Allowing Medicare to negotiate prices with pharmaceutical companies will lead to a substantial reduction in the costs of prescription drugs for US retirees.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: Just like every other civilized country does -- but unfortunately, the US plans to do this only for Medicare prices rather than all pharma prices
|
Question B: Allowing imports of medicines from Canada will lead to a substantial reduction in the costs of prescription drugs for US consumers without compromising safety.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: This would be a pathetic policy concession: the US doesn't have the political spine to regulate its own prices; so it must free-ride on Canada's higher-functioning healthcare system.
*Comment amended
|
Question A: A tolling program for New York City is out for public consultation with proposed charges on vehicles entering the central business district of Manhattan summarized here: https://new.mta.info/document/129191
The proposed tolls on vehicles entering the central business district of Manhattan are likely to lead to a substantial reduction in traffic congestion in the targeted area.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: Worked well in London. I’m not sufficiently steeped in the details of the NYC policy to know if will work equally well.
|
Question B: The proposed tolls on vehicles entering Manhattan are likely to lead to a substantial increase in traffic congestion just outside the central business district, above 60th Street, in the outer boroughs and New Jersey.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Uncertain |
4 |
|
Question A: The economic and financial sanctions against Russia are substantially limiting its ability to wage war on Ukraine.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
4 |
Uncertain |
4 |
Comment: I'm sure the sanctions matter. But I don't whether or not the magnitude reaches the "substantial" level.
|
Question B: In the absence of continuing flows of Western economic aid, Ukraine's wartime economy will be substantially compromised.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Strongly Agree |
7 |
Comment: Two years of military siege by one of the world's three military superpowers can be tough on an economy
|
Question A: Nippon Steel’s proposed acquisition of US Steel would lead to substantially less employment in the US steel industry than in the absence of such a deal.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Disagree |
6 |
Disagree |
5 |
Comment: US Steel is a moribund enterprise. Absent Japanese investment, it will likely continue to whither on the vine--like Chrysler or Sears. Nippon Steel's investment might give it a new lease on life and hence preserve employment.
|
Question B: Nippon Steel’s proposed acquisition of US Steel would cause no measurable damage to the American economy.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: US Steel is in bad shape. It's failure would be bad for the US Economy. Japanese investment, modernization, and management would be strategically valuable.
|
Question A: The fundamental cause of Argentina’s high inflation is unfunded fiscal commitments that are being financed by the central bank.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Agree |
6 |
|
|
Question B: Even if Argentina could marshal the resources to make a full switch to using US dollars for domestic transactions, it would substantially increase the volatility of Argentine GDP.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Disagree |
5 |
|
|
Question A: US GDP is substantially higher now as a result of the passage of the TCJA than it would have been had the TCJA not been passed, and all else was equal.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Disagree |
5 |
|
Question B: Corporate capital stock is substantially higher now as a result of the passage of the TCJA than it would have been had the TCJA not been passed, and all else was equal.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
5 |
Disagree |
5 |
|
Question C: Real median wages are substantially higher now as a result of the passage of the TCJA than they would have been had the TCJA not been passed, and all else was equal.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Disagree |
5 |
|
Question D: Federal tax revenues are substantially lower now as a result of the passage of the TCJA than they would have been had the TCJA not been passed, and all else was equal.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: U.S. tax cuts have never been shown to pay for themselves. This one is no exception.
|
Question E: Charitable donations are substantially lower now as a result of the passage of the TCJA than they would have been had the TCJA not been passed, and all else was equal.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
3 |
|
|
Shifting the burden of municipal property taxes towards land and away from improvements such as buildings - as proposed in the Detroit land value tax plan - will enhance the incentives for owners to develop their land and thereby give a substantial boost to local economic growth over a ten-year horizon.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Agree |
4 |
|
|
Question A: By enabling women’s life choices about education, work and family, the contraceptive pill made a substantial contribution to closing gender gaps in the labor market for professionals.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: It changed the structure of women's work. It did not lift the burden of career versus family, which still falls much more heavily on women.
|
Question B: Gender gaps in today’s labor market arise less from differences in educational and occupational choices than from the differential career impact of parenthood and social norms around men's and women’s roles in childrearing.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: This statement is largely true for college-educated women. I don't think it's true for non-college women, who still face much more overt discrimination (not that college-educated women don't as well, but probably less).
|
Question C: The gender gap in pay would be substantially reduced if firms had fewer incentives to offer disproportionate rewards to individuals who work long and/or inflexible hours.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: This appears to be a hard problem to solve, and it's not clear to what degree it's technological (i.e., in the nature of production) versus cultural (we've always done it this way, or we simply choose to do it this way). I strongly suspect that the answer is some of both.
|
Question A: Fiscal rules on budget deficits and public debt levels are an essential part of a sound fiscal framework.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Uncertain |
4 |
|
Question B: Since the inception of the Stability and Growth Pact, budget deficits in Europe have been measurably lower, on average, than would have been the case without common budget rules.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
4 |
|
|
Question C: Since the inception of the Stability and Growth Pact, the path of GDP growth in Europe has been measurably more stable than would have been the case without common budget rules.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Disagree |
4 |
|
|
Question A: Non-bank financial intermediaries pose a substantial threat to financial stability.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Agree |
5 |
|
|
Question B: Regulating the leverage and liquidity of non-bank financial intermediaries would substantially improve financial stability.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Agree |
5 |
|
|
Question C: Given current regulations, non-bank financial intermediaries should not have access to central bank support.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
Question A: An $8 cap on late fees for credit cards, as proposed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, would lead to a substantial reduction in overall costs for consumers.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
6 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: This definitely reduce credit card fees. I also suspect this would it be harder for people with relatively low credit scores to get credit cards. In the worst case, more people low-credit borrowers will be forced to use payday lenders, which will be much more expensive
|
Question B: Requiring that all credit card fees and interest rates be transparent, prominently displayed, and easily searchable online would lead to a substantial reduction in overall costs for consumers.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
7 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: This won't hurt. But I don't think it will have a substantial effect. People have self-control problems and succumb to myopic behavior in borrowing and repayment.
|
Question C: Consumers would be measurably better off if efforts to reduce the impact of so-called ‘junk fees’ across the economy concentrated on making fees more transparent than on capping specific types of fees.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
6 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: I'm not sure that people respond strongly to this type of information. But I favor trying it. There's no good-for-consumer reasons that this information is made obscure. And the fact that is often hidden suggests that lenders believe that revealing it would save consumers money.
|
Question A: When evaluating the consequences of any shifts in economic policy regimes, it is essential to consider potential changes in the behavior of economic agents due to revised expectations.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Comment: Was this ever controversial? It might have been non-obvious. But once stated, it's hard to argue with. One could disagree about anticipated response magnitudes, of course.
|
Question B: The empirical evidence on how monetary policy affects the economy in the short run is most consistent with the assumption that economic agents form rational expectations.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
Question C: Economic research has established that the welfare consequences of differences in countries’ growth and level of development are substantially higher than the welfare costs of business cycles.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: I'm pretty certain of this based on first principles
|
Question A: If enacted and technologically effective, a national ban on the use of TikTok would have a measurably negative impact on US innovation.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
1 |
Disagree |
3 |
|
Question B: If enacted and technologically effective, a national ban on the use of TikTok would have a measurably positive impact on the profits of the big US tech companies.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
1 |
Uncertain |
4 |
|
Question A: Use of artificial intelligence over the next ten years will lead to a substantial increase in the growth rates of real per capita income in the US and Western Europe over the subsequent two decades.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
6 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: It may accelerate scientific breakthroughs, but it may also spur social chaos. Whether the productive outpaces the destructive is uncertain.
|
Question B: Use of artificial intelligence over the next ten years will have a substantially bigger impact on the growth rates of real per capita income in the US and Western Europe over the subsequent two decades than the internet has had over the past two decades.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
4 |
Uncertain |
4 |
Comment: AI is potentially an even bigger deal than the Internet for industrialized countries (though not for the developing world). Whether this potential will generate faster growth rates is, in my mind, uncertain given the vast potential for ancillary harms.
|
Question A: Use of the renminbi in world trade, as a reserve currency, and/or for foreign bond denomination is likely to increase substantially relative to the dollar over the next ten years.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
4 |
|
|
Question B: Ceteris paribus, a shift to a more multi-polar international monetary system would have substantial negative implications for the US economy.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
4 |
|
|
Question A: Financial regulators in the US and Europe lack the tools and authority to deter runs on banks by uninsured depositors.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Disagree |
5 |
|
|
Question B: Not guaranteeing uninsured deposits at Silicon Valley Bank in full would have created substantial damage to the US economy.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
4 |
|
|
Question C: Fully guaranteeing uninsured deposits at Silicon Valley Bank substantially increases banks’ incentives to engage in excessive risk-taking.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
Question A: If it is implemented, the proposed increase in the tax rate on earned and business income above $400,000 in the Biden budget, along with other proposed changes to Medicare, would extend the solvency of the Medicare program for the next 25 years.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Uncertain |
4 |
|
Question B: If it is implemented, the proposed reform of Medicare drug negotiations in the Biden budget is likely to lead to a substantial reduction in drug prices for beneficiaries.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
4 |
|
Question C: If it is implemented, the proposed reform of Medicare drug negotiations in the Biden budget is likely to lead to a substantial reduction in the development of beneficial new drugs.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
7 |
Disagree |
4 |
Comment: The incentives around drug development are so distorted that it's hard to say. Reducing profits will reduce R&D, but whether these would have been "beneficial new drugs" is much less certain.
|
Question A: Imposing stronger legal liability on online platforms for content posted by users would substantially reduce the amount of user-generated content available on those platforms.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question B: Imposing stronger legal liability on online platforms for content posted by users would substantially damage those platforms’ advertising businesses.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Uncertain |
4 |
Comment: Probably, but if that were the primary cost, I'd say it's a small price to pay. That's not the main cost, however.
|
Question C: Imposing stronger legal liability on online platforms for content posted by users would substantially reduce the amount of misinformation and disinformation present on those platforms.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: It would reduce all information, good, bad, and indifferent. That's the real cost: not the loss of misinformation but the loss of a substantial chunk of everything else.
|
Question A: Adam Smith’s metaphor of the invisible hand has been foundational to the development of modern economic theory.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
8 |
Comment: It's a pretty compelling simile! (It's not a metaphor, as your high school English teacher dutifully taught you. I'm going to regret writing this parenthetical note.)
|
Question B: Adam Smith’s metaphor of the invisible hand has been commonly misinterpreted as advocacy for pure laissez-faire capitalism.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: Reading Smith is a Rorschach test. And although Rorschach tests have no wrong answers, many have failed when it comes to Smith
|
Question A: A combination of the US federal government having to defer some invoice, benefit, and salary payments, and miss payments on Treasury securities for several weeks would do substantial damage to financial markets.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
2 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: I'm just recycling secondhand info here -- no actual expertise added
|
Question B: A combination of the US federal government having to defer some invoice, benefit, and salary payments, and miss payments on Treasury securities for several weeks would lead to substantially lower employment within six months.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Uncertain |
4 |
|
Question C: The requirement to periodically increase the debt ceiling measurably reduces the long-run size of the debt.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
2 |
Disagree |
5 |
Comment: I'm not endorsing the nuclear approach to deficits, but it seems plausible that Republicans' ability to hold Democrat admins hostage over the debt ceiling extracts some meaningful budget concessions. R's didn't use this power with Trump. Selective concern and hypocrisy abound
|
Question A: Prohibiting firms from imposing employment contract provisions that prevent workers from moving to a competitor or starting a competing business would lead to a substantial increase in wages in the affected industries.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
6 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: Noncompetes are abused by U.S. employers and pertain in sectors where trade secrets cannot possibly be relevant (e.g., sandwich makers at fast food restaurants). But we have no evidentiary basis for saying how large a wage or mobility impact this will have in the U.S.
-see background information here |
Question B: A ban on non-compete clauses would lead to a measurable increase in innovation.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
4 |
Comment: No info on this.
|
Question C: A ban on non-compete clauses would lead to a measurable reduction in firms’ investment in staff training.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: Just don't have enough evidence to make any quantitative statement, even a qualitative quantitative statement(such as "a measurable reduction").
|
Question A: The market power of ticket-selling intermediaries leads to consumers who ultimately attend the music events paying substantially more and producers receiving substantially less than they would if the intermediary sector were more competitive.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: There may be some optimal underpricing to generate 'buzz' as per the interesting work of Alex Imas. But the bots-buy-the-tix-and-then price-gouge equilibrium that we're in is bad for everyone but scalpers.
-see background information here |
Question B: The present system of initial ticket selling and reselling through secondary ticket intermediaries often leads to large transfers between different groups of ticket buyers that could be partially captured by artists through higher initial ticket prices.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: There may be some optimal underpricing to generate 'buzz' as per the interesting work of Alex Imas. But the bots-buy-the-tix-and-then price-gouge equilibrium that we're in is bad for everyone but scalpers.
-see background information here |
Question C: Artists set prices at less than market-clearing levels in an effort to provide access for fans with modest incomes.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
6 |
Uncertain |
4 |
Comment: That's what the artists say, and it may even be what they intend, but it's not what happens, so it's hard to explain why they keep saying and doing this. There ought to be a better mechanism that preserves some low price tix for direct access by fans.
|
Question A: Network externalities give Twitter an incumbent advantage that will slow substantially the migration of users who would prefer alternative platforms.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: It takes years for these incumbency advantages to erode, but it happens! Think of MySpace, Friendster, and Facebook...
|
Question B: As of now, there needs to be more government regulation around Twitter’s content moderation and personal data protection.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: I would say yes except that I have no idea what workable legislation would look like
|
Question A: When economic policy-makers are unable to commit credibly in advance to a specific decision rule, they will often follow a poor policy trajectory.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Agree |
5 |
|
|
Question B: Rules-based fiscal policies deliver substantially better outcomes than purely discretionary, on the spot, policy choices.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
Question A: Given the centrality of semiconductors to the manufacturing of many products, securing reliable supplies should be a key strategic objective of national policy.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: The pandemic proved how vulnerable we are to semiconductor shortages. And those were supply chain hiccups, not hostile economic maneuvers by an adversary
|
Question B: Restrictions on exports of semiconductors and related high-tech equipment to China will substantially improve US technological leadership.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
6 |
Uncertain |
4 |
Comment: It's a serious escalation with uncertain consequences. It will forestall China achieving parity in the short run, but surely not in the long run
|
Question A: Research on the nature and impact of bank runs has made it possible to limit substantially the wider economic damage from financial crises.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
6 |
|
Question B: Reforms of financial regulation since 2008 (and macroprudential policies in some countries) will not substantially reduce the probability of financial crises.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: I suspect that financial crises are inevitable. But financial regulation + improved economic understanding of crises may reduce the damage.
|
Question A: In the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, the level of Florida’s GDP in five years will be substantially lower than it otherwise would.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
5 |
Disagree |
4 |
Comment: Given the federal and state subsidies and the intense demand for living in Florida, I think there will an investment boomlet and rebound
|
Question B: The prospect of further costly extreme weather events means that there is a substantial chance that some private property insurance markets will no longer exist in ten years in states such as Florida.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
6 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: We already see home insurers pulling out of FL. The state is now subsidizing home owner insurance, effectively taxing all residents to support housing in non-viable places. The equilibrium of this game is elusive.
|
Question C: Without large government subsidies, mandated flood insurance requirements would substantially reduce losses from subsequent natural disasters by encouraging economic activity to migrate from the most flood-prone areas.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: Not sure what “substantially means.” This would reduce population inflows into flood prone areas by a non-zero amount
|
Question A: The administration’s loan relief plan will not have a substantial impact on inflation in either direction.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
6 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: Since no student has paid federal loan debt since the start of the pandemic, this is not an immediate inflection point in household liquidity, but it does raise lifetime wealth of borrowers -- which should spur at least a bit more spending
|
Question B: A longer-term impact of the administration’s loan relief plan is likely to be substantially higher tuition fees at some universities.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
4 |
Comment: Weakly agree
|
Question C: A longer-term impact of the administration’s loan relief plan is likely to be measurably higher student debt burdens in anticipation of future forgiveness.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Uncertain |
4 |
Comment: Weakly agree. One can imagine amnesty cycles every 8 or 12 years, whenever Dems occupy the White House.
|
Question A: A price cap imposed by the G7/EU countries on purchases of Russian oil and oil-related products (and which applies to all importers of Russian oil using Western trade infrastructure, shipping, and insurance) would be an effective measure to reduce the flow of revenues to Russia.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: It's a great idea in theory but hard to enforce in practice. The cap will likely depress Russian oil revenue somewhat, in part by enabling China, Iran, and North Korea to negotiate a greater discount (though above the price cap).
|
Question B: The oil price cap imposed by the G7/EU countries will not have a substantial effect on the world oil price (such as the Brent crude benchmark).
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: Too many unknowns. It could even raise the Brent crude price by injecting even more uncertainty.
|
Question A: The current $7,500 tax credit for purchasing electric vehicles is regressive.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: EVs are high-status luxury goods bought by affluent households. The tax credit is akin to subsidizing high-efficiency jacuzzis
|
Question B: To encourage greater take-up of electric vehicles, public expenditure on infrastructure to support them (such as charging stations) is likely to be more cost-effective than providing equivalent amounts as tax credits/purchase rebates for buyers.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: Unlikely that this this solves regressiveness problem by spurring low income HHs to buy EVs. But might encourage somewhat broader adoption.
|
Question A: Laws restricting access to abortion are likely to have a negative impact on women's educational attainment, labor market participation, and earnings, particularly those in households of lower socio-economic status.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: Poor woman most likely to have unintended pregnancies, will be denied abortions. Multiple studies show abortion turn-aways -> poverty
|
Question B: States that ban abortion are likely to suffer significant economic losses.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
7 |
Uncertain |
4 |
Comment: Hurting poor women and families likely doesn't hurt growth in the short-term -- which may be why politician don't hesitate to do it
|
Question A: Increased unionization of the American workforce would give a noticeable boost to the earnings of current workers who become eligible to be members.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question B: Increased unionization of the American workforce would give a noticeable boost to wages for the median household.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: It would take more than a couple of Amazon warehouses to make that happen -- maybe 5 to 10 pct points more private sector coverage!
|
Question C: Increased unionization of the American workforce would have a net positive effect on employment.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
8 |
Disagree |
5 |
Comment: More union membership may or may not reduce employment. It's unlikely to raise it.
|
Question A: It would serve the US economy well to make it unlawful for companies with revenues over $1 billion to offer goods or services for sale at an “unconscionably excessive price” during an exceptional market shock.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
6 |
Disagree |
6 |
Comment: This just seems unenforceable at every level. What is unconscionable? Why only companies above $1 bil?
|
Question B: It would serve the US economy well if companies making quarterly SEC filings were obliged to include a tabulation of all price changes of goods or services sold, together with the associated cost changes.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Disagree |
6 |
Disagree |
6 |
Comment: This sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare. We need healthy competition policy, not a government that scrutinizes every price change!
|
Stablecoins that are not fully backed by either central bank reserves or government securities with minimal price volatility are inherently vulnerable to runs.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Agree |
6 |
|
|
High tariffs imposed by the European Union on imports of Russian natural gas would be an effective measure to reduce the flow of revenues to Russia while limiting disruption to supplies to Europe.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: High substitutability of non-Russian and Russian gas means that Russia should bear most of the incidence
|
Question A: A windfall tax on the profits of large oil companies – with the revenue rebated to households – would provide an efficient means to protect the average US household from rising energy costs.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
7 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: I want energy companies to invest right now. I also want consumers to reduce energy consumption. This idea discourages both
|
Question B: Temporary suspension of state and federal gas taxes would lead to a meaningful and immediate reduction in consumer prices at the pump.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: I don't know how large these taxes are, so I don't know meaningful this would be. I'd guess that consumers would see only 1/2 the tax cut.
|
Question A: The fallout from the Russian invasion of Ukraine will be stagflationary in that it will noticeably reduce global growth and raise global inflation over the next year.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question B: The economic and financial sanctions already implemented will lead to a deep recession in Russia.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
2 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question C: Targeting the Russian economy through a total ban on oil and gas imports carries a high risk of recession in European economies.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
2 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question D: Weaponizing dollar finance is likely to lead to a significant shift away from the dollar as the dominant international currency.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question A: High volatility in the prices of crypto assets such as Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and Ethereum largely reflects movements in investor sentiment rather than news about potential sources of fundamental value (such as possible applications, or use in illicit transactions).
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
7 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question B: Given existing regulations, as crypto assets grow in value and become more connected to the rest of the financial system, the fluctuations in their valuations pose a serious risk to financial stability in advanced economies.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question A: A permanent version of the 2021 expansion of the child tax credit would reduce child poverty substantially.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: I am less confident than I otherwise would have been due to the Corinth et al. 2021 study. I'm still cogitating on this
-see background information here |
Question B: The costs of increasing resources for low-income families via the expanded child tax credit would be substantially offset over the longer term by the fiscal benefits of improving life outcomes for children no longer growing up in poverty.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
5 |
Question C: Parental labor supply would be unlikely to fall significantly following reintroduction of the expanded child tax credit.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: My prior was no. Corinth et al. has shifted my prior towards uncertainty
-see background information here |
Question A: Firms’ incentives to reduce costs by sourcing inputs and products abroad have caused many American industries to become more vulnerable to supply chain disruptions.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question B: Private firms have inadequate incentives to make investments to reduce the risk that disruptions in the supply of imports will cause shortages and raise domestic prices.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: No reason that private firms would fully internalize this public goods/national security concern.
|
Question C: Global supply chain disruptions are the main driver of elevated US inflation over the past year.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
1 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: It's one of the drivers. Two others: demand surge due to pandemic aid transfer programs + consumption shift from services to goods
|
Question A: A significant factor behind today’s higher US inflation is dominant corporations in uncompetitive markets taking advantage of their market power to raise prices in order to increase their profit margins.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
7 |
Disagree |
6 |
Comment: I don't see the logic: U.S. markets have been concentrating for decades but high inflation is < one year old
|
Question B: Antitrust interventions could successfully reduce US inflation over the next 12 months.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
5 |
Disagree |
6 |
Comment: U.S. has a competition problem -- but I don't see it closely connected to current inflation
|
Question C: Price controls as deployed in the 1970s could successfully reduce US inflation over the next 12 months.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Disagree |
6 |
Comment: Price controls can of course control prices -- but they're a terrible idea!
|
Question A: Even without renewed Covid-19 restrictions, uncertainty about the health threat from the Omicron variant is likely to deliver a significant hit to economic activity from now through the first half of 2022.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question B: If world vaccine supply continues to be limited, global social welfare would rise by more if those vaccines were made widely available across Africa (with support for effective delivery) rather than accelerating booster vaccinations in rich countries.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: Social welfare of developing countries deserves great weight
|
Question C: Imposing travel bans on countries where new Covid-19 variants are discovered will make it less likely that countries will reveal new variants to the rest of the world.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: Plus, this does almost no good. Vaccines effective, travel bans ineffective
|
Question A: The supply bottlenecks that are currently contributing to rising prices can be reasonably expected to abate without causing inflation over the longer term to be above the Fed’s target.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: The supply bottlenecks will likely abate, but I doubt that this alone will resolve the inflation threat
|
Question B: The current combination of US fiscal and monetary policy poses a serious risk of prolonged higher inflation.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: The Fed erred correctly on the side of labor market recovery over inflation risk. Inflation risk is now inflation reality. Recalculating...
|
Question A: Efforts to achieve the goal of reaching net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050 will be a major drag on global economic growth.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
6 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: We underestimate our capacity to innovate, and the growth that ensues from innovation and investment
|
Question B: Voluntary national targets are unlikely to be an effective mechanism for achieving sharp reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Disagree |
7 |
Agree |
6 |
|
Question C: Agreement on a significant global price floor for all carbon emissions would be an effective step towards achieving sharp reductions in emissions.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Disagree |
9 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: If we could get there. Of course, there will still be plenty of cheating
|
Question A: The introduction of natural experiments to economic analysis of the labor market and related areas has led to a more precise understanding of cause and effect.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Strongly Agree |
7 |
|
Question B: The ‘credibility revolution’ in empirical economics has improved our understanding of a number of public policy issues, including education, immigration and the minimum wage.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Agree |
7 |
|
Question C: In pursuit of credible research designs, researchers often seek good answers instead of good questions.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
8 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: This sometimes happens, for sure. But "often" is too high a bar for me. So, I disagree.
|
Question A: A mandate for public companies to provide climate-related disclosures (such as their greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprint) would provide financially material information that enables investors to make better decisions.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question B: A mandate for public companies to provide climate-related disclosures would induce them to reduce their climate impact significantly.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Mandating staff vaccinations and/or regular testing at big employers would promote a faster and stronger economic recovery.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Strongly Agree |
7 |
Comment: I agree that this will likely make a positive contribution to the recovery -- but very likely a _small_ positive contribution
|
Question A: The use of non-compete clauses in US employment contracts reduces workers' mobility and wages by more than is justified by the protection of employers' intellectual property and trade secrets.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question B: Occupational licensing reduces mobility and wages for workers in many sectors where they could safely deliver services that consumers would prefer to those offered by licensed workers.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: See forthcoming ReStud paper by Morris Kleiner and MIT PhD student Evan Soltas, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3140912
|
Question A: Industry consolidation and weaker competition in the United States meaningfully constrain innovation and wage growth.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: But the answer differs by sector. Examples. Yes: airlines, wireless/broadband, hospitals. No: retail, restaurants.
|
Question B: Americans pay too much for broadband, cable television, and telecommunications services, in part because of a lack of adequate competition.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question A: The introduction of even small trade frictions between neighboring countries can result in significant economic damage, particularly to smaller exporting firms.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
4 |
Comment: This is predicted by theory. But frictionless trade btw industrial countries is nonexistent. So, what does adding a "small" friction mean?
|
Question B: A national economic boom based on natural resources is likely to harm other sectors of the economy, particularly manufacturing firms.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question A: A global minimum corporate tax rate would limit the benefits to companies of shifting profits to low-tax jurisdictions without biasing where they invest.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question B: A stable international tax system in which the major advanced economies collect a minimum rate on corporate income is achievable.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question C: A global corporate tax system that is based on the location of final consumers would be more efficient than one based on the location of corporate headquarters and production facilities.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Agree |
5 |
|
|
The current combination of US fiscal and monetary policy poses a serious risk of prolonged higher inflation.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
3 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question A: The $300 supplement to weekly unemployment benefits available from now through September 6 constitutes a major disincentive to work for lower-wage workers.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
10 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: Since there's no evidence on this Q yet, only the WSJ editorial page can be certain that it constitutes a major disincentive to work!
|
Question B: The $300 supplement to weekly unemployment benefits available from now through September 6 is likely to lead to re-employment wages for currently unemployed workers that are higher by an economically meaningful amount.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
4 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question C: Click to write the question text
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
0 |
||
|
Question A: Reliable Covid-19 vaccines will reach developing countries more quickly if the rich countries pay the pharmaceutical companies at prevailing prices to manufacture and distribute the vaccines (or to license production and support licensees), rather than waiving patent protection.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: U.S. is setting a terrible precedent by voiding patents after successful cooperation w/Pharma during Warp Speed. It's a repeated game.
|
Question B: The benefits to the US, Canada, Europe, Japan and other rich countries of paying for 12 billion doses of Covid vaccines at prevailing prices and providing them for free to the rest of the world exceed the costs that the rich countries would incur.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: For both moral and pragmatic reasons, chaos and death in the developing world harm all of us. We should assist immediately and generously.
|
Question A: The Bank for International Settlements defines a central bank digital currency as follows: ‘In simple terms, a central bank digital currency (CBDC) would be a digital banknote. It could be used by individuals to pay businesses, shops or each other (a 'retail CBDC'), or between financial institutions to settle trades in financial markets (a ‘wholesale CBDC').’For developed countries, a central bank digital currency that is available to the public at large would offer social benefits that exceed the associated costs or risks.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question B: Central banks that do not introduce their own digital money risk losing the ability to conduct effective monetary policy.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question C: The introduction of a central bank digital currency is unlikely to have major effects on the economy.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
Question A: In an economy open to capital flows, monetary policy can only be effective with a floating exchange rate.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
Question B: For emerging and developing economies open to the world capital market, a flexible exchange rate confers little advantage over a pegged exchange rate in terms of economic stability.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Disagree |
4 |
|
|
Question C: The key feature making the US a more natural optimum currency area than the euro area is higher labor mobility.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
Question A: Removing intellectual property protections on Covid-19 vaccines would substantially improve availability of the vaccines in developing countries.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
4 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question B: Removing intellectual property protections on Covid-19 vaccines would have a negative impact on vaccine development efforts for future variants of SARS-CoV-2 or for the next pandemic.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: New equilibrium: If governments lift vaccineIP protections ex post, they should be prepared to pay for the next round of vaccines ex ante.
|
Question C: Without an international agreement that facilitates vaccine trade, countries’ incentives to limit exports of vaccines and/or key production inputs are likely to prolong the adverse effects of the pandemic in advanced countries.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
4 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question A: Policies that aim to reduce obesity by increasing incentives for physical activity would improve social welfare more than policies that increase the financial costs of consuming calories.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
3 |
|
|
Question B: A ban on advertising junk foods (those that are high in sugar, salt, and fat) would be an effective policy to reduce child obesity.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
3 |
|
|
Sound policy would involve increasing significantly the currently near-zero price of emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Strongly Agree |
9 |
Comment: The most important first step towards slowing global warming.
|
Question A: Bans on the short selling of financial securities, such as stocks and government bonds, would lead to prices that are further, on average, from their fundamental values.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Agree |
6 |
|
|
Question B: Requiring investors to disclose short positions in a stock at the equivalent threshold as they are required to do for long positions would improve the accuracy of stock prices.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
4 |
|
|
Question A: Until mass vaccination is achieved, any additional government spending going directly to households should focus on keeping low-income individuals and families safe and healthy rather than on boosting current economic activity.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
5 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: Infection rates + deaths are falling and vaccination rollout is accelerating. It's time to start recovery. Biden won't get two at-bats
|
Question B: If the goal is to boost current economic activity, targeting checks at households making less than $75,000 per year would be more cost-effective than providing checks to higher income households as well.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: Evidence is that HH's with higher incomes simply put the money in the bank. We don't need government handouts to spur personal savings.
|
Question A: The current US federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. States can choose whether to have a higher minimum - and many do.A federal minimum wage of $15 per hour would lower employment for low-wage workers in many states.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: The weight of the evidence does not support large job loss. But I'm above extra nervous about setting min $15/hr during the pandemic.
|
Question B: A federal minimum wage that is pegged to state and/or local conditions such as the cost of living would be preferable to the current arrangements that give states a role in setting the policy.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: Although states can & do calibrate upward, the federal min is valuable. Approx 20 states simply adhere to federal lower bound.
|
Question A: The UK economy is likely to be at least several percentage points smaller in 2030 than it would have been if the country had remained in the European Union.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question B: The aggregate economy of the 27 countries still in the EU is likely to be at least several percentage points smaller in 2030 than if the UK had not left.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Uncertain |
4 |
|
Requiring Facebook to divest WhatsApp and Instagram is likely to make society better off.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: My main hope is that forced breakup would deter other future anticompetitive merger attempts.
|
Question A: Our understanding of labor productivity has been much enhanced by accounting for monetary and promotion-based incentives within firms and related selection effects.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: Rank order tournaments, performance pay and sorting, sorting in experiments. These are classic insights.
|
Question B: Large salaries for senior business executives are less a reflection of an individual’s current contribution to a firm’s overall performance than a ‘prize’ for those who put in the effort to achieve one of the top positions.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
6 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: Much as I like the ROT hypothesis, I doubt it's the main explanation for the rot-ten excess of executive pay in the U.S.
|
Question A: Having the government issue additional debt to pay off all current outstanding student loans would be net regressive.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: Alongside my kids' student loans, I'd like the government to pay off my mortgage. If the latter idea shocks you, the first one should too
|
Question B: Having the government issue enough additional debt to pay off student loans up to a threshold, for borrowers whose income is below a certain level, could be progressive.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: This could create terrible incentives, both for labor supply and (bad) educational investments. Proceed with great caution
|
Question C: Extension of the suspension of payments on student loans after the end of the year would support the recovery more effectively than devoting equivalent resources to general income-based transfer payments.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
6 |
Disagree |
5 |
Comment: General income-based transfer payments could always be used to pay student loans. That's the beauty of cash over in-kind transfers
|
Question A: Google's dominance of the market for internet search arose mainly from a combination of economies of scale and a quality algorithm.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: If Google hadn't invented page rank, someone else would have. Google benefited from getting their first with a good idea.
|
Question B: In light of Google’s dominance, its current operating practices could have a substantial negative effect on social welfare in the long run.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: I fear Google is becoming the new *old* Microsoft, before the anti-trust case. They may not be doing substantial harm now--but they could
|
Question C: The nature of the market dominance of technology giants in the digital economy warrants either the imposition of some kind of regulation or a fundamental change in antitrust policy.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: The Sherman Act was not setup for the networked world. Case in point: Facebook should never have been allowed to buy WhatsApp.
|
The practical application of auction theory to the licensing of rights to use public assets like radiospectrum and other natural resources has generated substantially higher government revenues and better allocative efficiency worldwide than would have happened under previous arrangements.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: Not my area of expertise; I am relying on the judgment of others. (So no information here.)
|
Question A: Restoring the top individual federal income tax rate to 39.6% for incomes over $400,000 (from the current 37%) and taxing the capital gains and dividends of taxpayers with income over $1 million at that top rate (instead of the current preferential rate of 20%), with no other associated changes in taxes or spending, would be unlikely to hurt economic growth noticeably.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: We've seen this movie before during the Clinton and Obama administrations. It has a happy ending.
|
Question B: Restoring the top tax rate, removing the preferential rate on capital gains and dividends, and raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, with no other associated changes in taxes or spending, would be likely to lead to a meaningful sustained reduction in fiscal deficits.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: These specific cuts ballooned the federal budget deficit; reversing them would have the opposite effect. (This is not ideal policy either)
|
Question A: The US economy would be substantially stronger today if the state and local ‘stay-at-home’ orders had been more uniform and lasted longer in the first half of the year.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: Korea is the best case scenario. Germany had its act together. The U.S. response was chaotic, and this has slowed the eventual rebound
|
Question B: The economy will receive a substantial boost as soon as K-12 schools can be safely opened in person nationwide.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: Boost will come *years later* when students reach the labor market with more skills. Status quo is a disaster for human capital formation!
|
The Fed’s revised strategy to focus on employment shortfalls and a more flexible interpretation of the inflation target will make little practical difference to monetary policy outcomes over the next decade.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question A: Employment growth is currently constrained more by firms' lack of interest in hiring than people’s willingness to work at prevailing wages.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question B: Reducing supplemental levels of unemployment benefits so that no workers receive more than a 100% replacement rate would be a more effective way to balance incentives and income support than simply stopping the supplement at the end of this month.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Agree |
7 |
|
Question C: A well-designed unemployment insurance system would tie federal contributions to states on the basis of each state’s economic and public health conditions.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question A: Even if it is temporary, the ban on visas for skilled workers, including researchers, will weaken US leadership in STEM and R&D.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Strongly Agree |
7 |
|
Question B: Significantly fewer top foreign students will be attracted to US universities as a result of increased restrictions on visas for skilled workers.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Strongly Agree |
7 |
|
Question C: If increased restrictions on visas for skilled workers are made permanent, a noticeable share of research activities by US and foreign companies will move abroad.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Strongly Agree |
7 |
|
Question A: Given the social and regulatory pressures to keep prices down for drugs and vaccines to treat Covid-19, the financial incentives for pharmaceutical companies to invest in such products are below the value of the investment to society.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: Would not rule out large profits for suppliers under Trump admin. Also, a large 'halo' effect for first to market.
|
Question B: Government commitments to pay developers and manufacturers above average costs for an effective vaccine or drug treatments for Covid-19 would accelerate production.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: I would say "strongly agree" but there are already >100 vaccines under development, so perhaps incentives are sufficient.
|
Question C: Given the positive externalities from vaccination, an effective Covid-19 vaccine should be mandatory for every US resident (except those with health exceptions, such as infants and people with compromised immunity) with the cost covered by the federal government.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: Vaccination is a public good -- but so is wearing a mask, and that's not going so well...
|
Question A: Political conflict plays a key role in shaping economic decisions, policies and outcomes.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Strongly Agree |
7 |
Comment: Sorry, is this a question posed by a visitor from a foreign planet?
|
Question B: The US has a smaller social welfare system than other rich countries in part because it is more heterogeneous by race and ethnicity.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
6 |
|
Question A: Clearing the market for surgical face masks using prices is detrimental to the public good.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: Medical providers have highest social value of these supplies, not clear that they highest willingness/ability to pay
|
Question B: Laws to prevent high prices for essential goods in short supply in a crisis would raise social welfare.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
5 |
Uncertain |
6 |
Comment: Not enough to ban pricing! Need a mechanism to substitute based on view that social value does not equal private value at this point in time
|
Question C: Governments should buy essential medical supplies at what would have been the market price and redistribute according to need rather than ability to pay.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
4 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: Government should procure. Not clear government/public should transfer all surplus to private sector
|
Question A: Assuming that additional federal spending were to be structured as in the CARES Act, a substantial further spending program now will ultimately be less costly than a smaller program because it will better help to avoid long-term economic damage and promote a stronger recovery.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
6 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: At this point, the money would be better spent supporting state budgets. Also, CARES needs some tweaking!
|
Question B: Having a fiscal rule that increases social spending on programs like unemployment insurance and SNAP based on the conditions of the economy would be an improvement on the discretionary way in which these programs are currently operated.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
9 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: Automatic stabilizers work immediately and are not subject to dead-of-night lobbyist insertions and last-minute legislative bungles
|
Question A: Economic damage from the virus and lockdowns will ultimately fall disproportionately hard on low- and middle-income countries.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: I would have said absolutely two weeks ago. But virus spread has been much less than expected in low & mid-income countries -- good news!
|
Question B: A temporary standstill on sovereign debt payments by low- and middle-income countries to all official and private creditors to give those countries space to cover the immediate costs of the crisis would benefit advanced economies.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Uncertain |
4 |
Comment: Messy defaults benefit neither borrowers nor creditors
|
Question C: Export restrictions on food and medical supplies, and other protectionist measures, are likely to cost lives and slow economic recovery in all countries.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: Almost all countries are interdependent in this domain -- esp. when it comes to eventual vaccine and/or treatment distribution
|
Question A: Current institutional arrangements mean that small firms will be able to renegotiate with creditors and landlords to avoid bankruptcy during the lockdown.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: That's the intention! Remains to be seen how well it works...
|
Question B: A program that allows small businesses to skip rent and utilities during the lockdown, but repay them slowly over time afterwards, would be a net benefit to the economy.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: Simply allowing non-payment would do damage. Requiring immediate payment would do damage. This is a half-way house.
|
Question A: The balance of federal and local government support to address the economic impact of the crisis has thus far been tilted too much towards supporting firms rather than individuals.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
6 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: The U.S. overshot on increasing UI generosity rather than paying firms to retain workers. Other countries have done far better.
|
Question B: Government provision of financial support to firms to keep workers on payroll for the duration of the lockdown will make the recovery faster than if the only recourse for workers to replace income were unemployment insurance.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
7 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: Those worker-firm relationships were valuable. CARES subsidizes firms and workers to break those bonds, and this may slow recovery
|
Question A: With the economy in lockdown, low-income workers who are above the poverty line will suffer a relatively bigger hit to their incomes than those further up the distribution (even accounting for all government support schemes).
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: CARES provide valuable stopgap, but employment has collapsed in low-wage, in-person service jobs--and perhaps a long, slow rebound
|
Question B: With the economy in lockdown, existing gaps in access to quality education between high- and low-income households will be exacerbated.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: Unequal PCs/Internet is small part of problem. Adults with skills to home-school in place of teachers are in high income/education HHs.
|
Question C: The mortality impact of Covid-19 is likely to fall disproportionately on disadvantaged socio-economic groups.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Strongly Agree |
7 |
Comment: Data already make this clear. But highly-educated medical workers (+ less credentialed medical aids) also bearing disproportionate burden.
|
Question A: Even if tests for Covid-19 are being rationed, there is an urgent need for some random testing to establish baseline levels of the virus to inform any decisions about ending lockdowns.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Strongly Agree |
7 |
|
Question B: Required elements for an economic ‘restart’ after lockdowns include a massive increase in testing capacity (for infections and antibodies) along with a coherent strategy for preventing new outbreaks and reintroducing low-risk/no-risk individuals into public activities.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
7 |
Strongly Agree |
8 |
|
Question A: A comprehensive policy response to the coronavirus will involve tolerating a very large contraction in economic activity until the spread of infections has dropped significantly.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Strongly Agree |
7 |
|
Question B: Abandoning severe lockdowns at a time when the likelihood of a resurgence in infections remains high will lead to greater total economic damage than sustaining the lockdowns to eliminate the resurgence risk.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: We could overdo this lockdown! (But we could under-do it as well)
|
Question C: Optimally, the government would invest more than it is currently doing in expanding treatment capacity through steps such as building temporary hospitals, accelerating testing, making more masks and ventilators, and providing financial incentives for the production of a successful vaccine.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Comment: The fiscal response is awesome (assuming that the $2T bill passes), but the federal health response has been abysmal
|
Question A: Even if the mortality of COVID-19 proves to be limited (similar to the number of flu deaths in a regular season), it is likely to cause a major recession.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: Recession seems likely because of the drastic and accelerating fall in regular consumer and business activity
|
Question B: The economic effects of COVID-19 coming from reduced spending will be larger than those coming from disruptions to supply chains and illness-related workforce reductions.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: Supply chains are mostly about goods production, but manufacturing <20% of GDP. Services are a larger share of GDP & may be more exposed
|
Question A: Replacing the current US health insurance system (including employer-based health insurance, ACA exchange policies, and Medicaid) with universal ‘Medicare for All’ (mandatory enrollment in a modified version of the existing traditional Medicare program with drug coverage and no cost-sharing of any form, and current Medicare reimbursement rates) funded by federal taxes would lead to improved access to healthcare for a meaningful subset of the population.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
6 |
Agree |
6 |
|
Question B: Replacing the current US health insurance system as outlined in a) would lead to longer waiting times for healthcare for a meaningful subset of the population.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: Too many free parameters to make a prediction
|
Question A: Replacing the current US health insurance system (including employer-based health insurance, ACA exchange policies, and Medicaid) with universal ‘Medicare for All’ (mandatory enrollment in a modified version of the existing traditional Medicare program with drug coverage and no cost-sharing of any form, and current Medicare reimbursement rates) funded by federal taxes would lead to lower aggregate medical debt among patients.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question B: Replacing the current US health insurance system as outlined in a) would lead to lower aggregate innovation in the pharmaceutical industry.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
10 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question C: Replacing the current US health insurance system as outlined in a) would improve health outcomes for the majority of the population.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
6 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: Probably yes on average because it would pull up lower tail. But not for the majority who are already insured.
|
Question A: Following the UK election result, the certainty that the country is going to leave the European Union will provide a substantial short-term boost to the UK economy.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Uncertain |
4 |
|
Question B: The near certainty that the UK will leave the European Union’s customs union and single market in 2020 offers a sizeable export market opportunity for American business.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
A ban on very short-term loans at very high annualized interest rates (aka payday lending) would make most people who use or might use them better off.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: You've set the bar high: "very short-term loans at very high annualized interest rates." So I'll say that these loans benefit few people
|
Question A: Under current policies on climate change, the associated physical risks (such as those arising from total seasonal rainfall and sea level changes, and increased frequency, severity, and correlation of extreme weather events) will be at most a very small factor in monetary policy decisions over the next decade.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
1 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question B: The physical risks associated with climate change under current policies are likely to threaten financial stability over the next decade.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: NOT in the U.S., but in poor, low-lying countries
|
Taking into account the revenues, consumer surplus, purchasing patterns by income, and possible consumer biases, state-run lotteries (such as Powerball and scratch-off games) increase social welfare.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
4 |
|
|
Question A: Randomized control trials are a valuable tool for answering some long unsettled questions in development economics research.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Strongly Agree |
7 |
|
Question B: Randomized control trials are a valuable tool for making significant progress in poverty reduction.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: Significant does NOT mean that RCTs will get us all the way there. But they are indispensable in this effort.
|
Question A: Rising inequality is straining the health of liberal democracy.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: Autor, Dorn, Hanson, Majlesi "Importing Political Polarization" document this for the China Shock. Point applies to inequality generally.
|
Question B: Enacting more redistributive expenditures and policies would be likely to limit the rise of populism.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: Genie is out of the bottle. Populism rising even in social welfare states.
|
Question C:Governments should allocate more resources to policies that would be likely to limit the rise of populism, even if it means higher public debt or lower public spending in other areas.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: I think these policies are worth enacting, even though they probably won't limit rise of populism.
|
Question A: Having companies run to maximize shareholder value creates significant negative externalities for workers and communities.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Uncertain |
6 |
Comment: Data show huge monetary + psychic costs to workers of mass layoffs that are almost surely not internalized by employers
|
Question B: Appropriately managed corporations could create significantly greater value than they currently do for a range of stakeholders – including workers, suppliers, customers and community members – with negligible impacts on shareholder value.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
7 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: I don’t know why this would be a free lunch
|
Question C: Effective mechanisms for boards of directors to ensure that CEOs act in ways that balance the interests of all stakeholders would be straightforward to introduce.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
10 |
Disagree |
6 |
Comment: Never straightforward. But still potentially worth it. Other country examples — Germany, Denmark— prove it’s feasible.
|
A substantial source of the value of decentralized private cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, arises from their convenience for use in illegal activities.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: I don't know, and I don't know how anyone could know. Please enlighten!
|
Question A: In a case like the US women’s national soccer team where the revenues that they generate and their on-field performance both exceed those of the men’s team, there is no justification for lower pay.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: There’s no simple market price for talent. But I don’t see why women’s team shouldn’t get same share of rents as men’s team
|
Question B: Fining companies above a certain size that fail to provide the same remuneration to men and women employees performing comparable roles would be an effective way of closing the gender pay gap.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: I strongly support equal pay. Extremely difficult to write good laws that enforce this goal since marginal product is not usually observable
|
Question A: Mexico's persistent bilateral trade surplus with the United States implies that Mexico is following policies that keep the peso artificially weak against the US dollar.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
7 |
Strongly Disagree |
8 |
Comment: No. That's AN explanation -- but not the most likely one
|
Question B: The existence of a multi-year trade deficit of Country A with Country B implies that B has successfully tilted the playing field in its favor in terms of such policies as tariffs, non-tariff barriers, and the exchange rate between them.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Disagree |
7 |
Strongly Disagree |
7 |
Comment: Why does China run persistent surpluses with U.S. but not Germany? Hard to believe currency manipulation can explain both!
|
Question A: The first required class for undergraduate economics majors at my university accurately reflects the way that economists think about a range of economics problems.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Did Not Answer | Agree |
7 |
|
|
Question B: The first required class for undergraduate economics majors at my university addresses the most pressing economic issues in the US.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Did Not Answer | Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
Question A: The incidence of the latest round of US import tariffs is likely to fall primarily on American households.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: They will also fall on Chinese consumers and producers. But within the U.S., much of incidence appears to be on households so far.
|
Question B: The impact of the tariffs – and any Chinese countermeasures – on US prices and employment is likely to be felt most heavily by lower income groups and regions.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: Tariffs are undesirable but have gotten China's attention -- important given China's longstanding trade malpractice
|
Selecting candidates for membership of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) based primarily on their political views would lead to worse monetary policy outcomes than has been the case over the last 15 years.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Comment: Monetary policy has an important public mission -- and it's not about electoral politics
|
Question A: The admission of children of alumni and donors at elite private colleges and universities crowds out applicants with greater academic potential.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
6 |
|
Question B: The net effect of admitting children of alumni and donors (including any impact on donations and any losses of other high potential applicants) is likely to be a reduction in the contribution of colleges and universities to society.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: There are clear costs + benefits, But the optics are terrible, which degrades public faith in ostensibly meritocratic institutions.
|
Question A: Senator Warren’s proposed wealth tax would be much more difficult to enforce than existing federal taxes because of difficulties of valuation and the ways by which the wealthy can under-report their true wealth.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question B: If successfully enforced, Senator Warren’s proposed wealth tax would substantially decrease the share of wealth going to the top 0.1% of wealth-holders after 20 years.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
5 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question C: A public policy goal that could be accomplished with a well-enforced wealth tax could be equally accomplished with modifications to existing federal taxes – for example, revising the estate tax and/or capital gains tax.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question A: Forcing Amazon to divest Whole Foods now would be in the public interest.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
5 |
Disagree |
5 |
Comment: Where is the market power issue or consumer harm here? Amazon's entry into the grocery business appears pro-competitive to me
|
Question B: Acquisitions by large tech platforms where there are risks of anti-competitive effects like those posed by Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods should not be permitted.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
3 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: Yes, anticompetitive mergers should be curtailed. But I don't see how this applies to an online retailer buying a brick and mortar grocer
|
Question C: Large tech platforms, such as Amazon Marketplace and Google Search, should be designated as ‘platform utilities' and broken apart from any participant on that platform.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
5 |
Disagree |
5 |
Comment: I think this is worth debating. But I'm far from certain it should occur
|
Question A: Countries that borrow in their own currency should not worry about government deficits because they can always create money to finance their debt.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Strongly Disagree |
8 |
|
|
Question B: Countries that borrow in their own currency can finance as much real government spending as they want by creating money.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Strongly Disagree |
8 |
|
|
Question A: When local governments compete by offering subsidies to a firm that is willing to relocate, and shopping across multiple alternative areas, the firm typically captures most of value that is created via the relocation.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: This seems plausible, but I have no way to know. Nether the firm nor the host government can precisely forecast what value will result.
|
Question B: A federal prohibition against states and municipalities offering tax subsidies to attract specific businesses that are shopping across multiple areas to relocate would be welfare improving for the average taxpayer.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Uncertain |
4 |
Comment: On average, I suspect these agreements rip off taxpayers. There are certainly exceptions. But the expected value is probably negative
|
It is best for society if the management of U.S. publicly traded corporations only considers the impact of their decisions on customers, employees, and community members to the extent that these impacts feedback to impact shareholder wealth.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Disagree |
7 |
|
|
In general, absent any inside information, an equity investor can expect to do better by holding a well-diversified, low-fee, passive index fund than by holding a few stocks.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Strongly Agree |
8 |
|
Raising the top federal marginal tax on earned personal income to 70% (and holding the rest of the current tax code, including the top bracket definition, fixed) would raise substantially more revenue (federal and state, combined) without lowering economic activity.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Disagree |
6 |
Comment: Not my area, but no clear evidence that historically high U.S. marginal tax rates reduced economic activity -- though they raised revenue.
|
Rather than using second-round runoffs to settle elections in which no candidate wins a first-round majority, it would be better to use ranked-choice voting (as in the state of Maine) in which voters are encouraged to rank all of the candidates.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
6 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: Much voter preference info wasted in dichotomous voting! Rank-choice voting preferable, and could reduce bilateral party monopoly
|
The US spends roughly 17% of GDP on healthcare, according to the OECD; most European countries spend less than 12% of GDP.
Higher quality-adjusted US healthcare prices contribute relatively more to the extra US spending than does the combination of higher quantity and quality of US care (interpreting quantity and quality to reflect both greater American healthcare needs due to underlying population health and the delivery of more or better healthcare services to Americans).
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Agree |
6 |
|
Question A: Considering a broad range of costs and benefits is a better tool for guiding climate policy than setting temperature limits (such as 1.5 °C , eg) based on expected links between temperature increases and the extent of environmental harm.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
7 |
Agree |
7 |
|
Question B: Carbon taxes are a better way to implement climate policy than cap-and-trade.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Agree |
6 |
|
|
Ideas are nonrival, so increasing returns to scale is an essential feature of technological change in a market economy.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: I don't know what "essential" means. And ideas are rival in a market economy with a patent system.
|
If a small number of firms have a large combined market share in a properly defined market, it is strong evidence that those firms have substantial market power.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: It is a strong prima facie case, but it is not proof of that case, nor does it mean that they are necessarily exercising that power!
|
Question A: Capping the number of ride-sharing drivers as is being discussed in New York City, Chicago and London will make the average resident in that city worse off.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: At present, congestion externalities are not correctly priced in. A blunt 'cap' policy could make things better or worse-but probably worse
|
Question B: To achieve a given level of congestion, it would be better to use taxes for driving that vary based on the level of congestion, rather than limiting the number of ride-sharing vehicles.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
7 |
Strongly Agree |
7 |
Comment: See prior comment
|
Because global supply chains are more important now, import tariffs are likely substantially more costly than they would have been 25 years ago.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: This seems quite plausible. I do not have data to confirm it, but I'm hoping our trade economist friends will confirm or refute.
|
Britain's Labour party recently proposed giving the Bank of England a target of 3% annual labor productivity growth. Consider the following statement:
Central banks cannot significantly increase productivity growth over a ten year horizon, except perhaps by promoting macroeconomic stability.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Agree |
7 |
|
|
The European Union often uses its antitrust powers to protect EU-based firms from international competition, rather than to promote greater competition in European markets.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Disagree |
4 |
|
|
All things considered, US society will be better off if sports betting becomes legal in more US states (beyond Nevada).
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Did Not Answer | Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
Over the next decade, autonomous cars will raise average welfare in the US by at least as much as smartphones have over the past decade.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
4 |
Comment: Could take >10 years for Autonomous Vehicles to have large societal effects -- and it's not clear how much smartphones have raised welfare!
|
Restricting eligibility for senior government economic-policy posts by requiring a graduate degree in economics would reduce the chances for good public policy outcomes.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Disagree |
6 |
Comment: On average, economists understand economics better than non-economists. But some of the best policy entrepreneurs come from outside the fold
|
NCAA Division I schools coordinate compensation for men’s basketball and football players (precluding actual pay and limiting non-monetary benefits), providing rents to member schools (which may be shared with others) at the expense of those players.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: I would say "Strongly agree, Certainty 10," but noting that I know *nothing* about sports, I'm dialing this back to "Agree, Certainty 7"
|
Imposing new US tariffs on steel and aluminum will improve Americans’ welfare.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
6 |
Strongly Disagree |
8 |
Comment: Simple answer is no! Complex answer is that this _could be_ a strategic gambit in a longer game that deters abuse of free trade agreements.
|
Question A: By providing electronic benefit cards to choose and buy groceries at stores, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program currently does more for its recipients' well-being than it would if the program directly provided a smaller array of foods to its recipients, while commensurately reducing the amount they could spend on groceries of their own choosing.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: Food stamp recipients are generally not starving but they are poor. Fungibility of resources more useful than boxes of prefab meals
|
Question B: By providing electronic benefit cards to choose and buy groceries at stores, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program currently does more to raise food security and reduce hunger than it would if the program directly provided a smaller array of foods to its recipients, while commensurately reducing the amount they could spend on groceries of their own choosing.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
5 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: Economic insecurity of food stamp recipients would rise if their choices were further constrained. Not clear that hunger is the main issue
|
The biggest reason for the measured slowdown in US productivity growth since the mid-2000s is that productivity increases have gone mismeasured, including new and better products and services that have been insufficiently captured by real output data.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
7 |
Disagree |
5 |
Comment: A number of papers debunk this idea, eg. Syverson JEP 2017. There's surely mismeasurement, but v. unlikely the primary explanation for trend
|
Because of the many special and unique roles that the dollar plays in global commerce, US citizens are substantially better off than they otherwise would be.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
6 |
|
Over the past two years, all else equal, the appeal of the US as a destination for immigrants has changed in ways that will likely decrease innovation in the US economy.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Did Not Answer | Agree |
6 |
|
|
Question A: Without changes in policy, a rising share of people who are over age 65 will exert a substantial downward influence on per capita real GDP in western European countries.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
6 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: Frequently asserted but rarely evidence. Work by Acemoglu-Restrepo seems to indicate otherwise.
|
Question B: In European countries where the share of those over 65 is rising, there are net social benefits to adjusting retirement ages for state-financed (including pay-as-you-go) pension systems upwards, so that revised retirement ages better reflect longer life expectancies.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: Yes, but should be done in conjunction with reforms to disability systems, etc., so those in poor health and of low education are protected.
|
Question A: A bitcoin has a fundamental value of at least $1,000.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Disagree |
5 |
|
|
Question B: The best forecast for the value of one bitcoin in 2 years is its current price.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: But there is infinite variance around this forecast
|
Question A: The concept of “maximum sustainable employment” is well defined enough to be used beneficially in economic policymaking.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Uncertain |
6 |
Comment: Emphasis on "well defined enough" -- meaning that it's not precisely defined, but still approximately useful.
|
Question B: Right now the US economy is operating below maximum sustainable employment.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: Unemployment is down, which is great, but labor force participation still has a lot of headroom to rise.
|
Question A: If the US enacts a tax bill similar to those currently moving through the House and Senate — and assuming no other changes in tax or spending policy — US GDP will be substantially higher a decade from now than under the status quo.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
5 |
Disagree |
6 |
Comment: Tax policy appears to have little effect at the margin on GDP growth in OECD countries.
|
Question B: If the US enacts a tax bill similar to those currently moving through the House and Senate — and assuming no other changes in tax or spending policy — the US debt-to-GDP ratio will be substantially higher a decade from now than under the status quo.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: Since growth is likely to be little affected, debt to GDP will rise substantially, absent offsetting policies -- which are rarely enacted
|
Question A: Amending the Constitution to require that the federal government end each fiscal year without a deficit would substantially reduce output variability in the United States.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Strongly Disagree |
7 |
|
Question B: Amending the Constitution to require that the federal government end each fiscal year without a deficit would substantially lower the cost of borrowing for the federal government.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Disagree |
5 |
|
Insights from psychology about individual behavior – examples of which include limited rationality, low self-control, or a taste for fairness – predict several important types of observed market outcomes that fully-rational economic models do not.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Comment: Is there still a debate on this question? This is the third Nobel in behavioral economics after all (Kahneman, Schiller, & Thaler)!
|
The influx of refugees into Germany beginning in the summer of 2015 will generate net economic benefits for German citizens over the succeeding decade.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: I'm not aware of any evidence that says that immigration has long-run domestic costs -- though it may impose short-term adjustment costs.
|
Question A: Holding labor market institutions and job training fixed, rising use of robots and artificial intelligence is likely to increase substantially the number of workers in advanced countries who are unemployed for long periods.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
6 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: It's not impossible, but I'm not so far seeing the evidence that "that this time is different."
|
Question B: Rising use of robots and artificial intelligence in advanced countries is likely to create benefits large enough that they could be used to compensate those workers who are substantially negatively affected for their lost wages.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
9 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: Panelist meant to strongly agree (question misread). Though these techs will almost surely ↑ GDP, losers almost surely won’t be compensated.
|
Question A: If the Fed changed its inflation target from 2% to 4%, the long-run costs of inflation for households would be essentially unchanged.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Disagree |
5 |
|
|
Question B: Raising the inflation target to 4% would make it possible for the Fed to lower rates by a greater amount in a future recession.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Agree |
5 |
|
|
If the US reduced its fiscal deficit, then its trade deficit would also shrink.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question A: The US should increase spending now on roads, railways, bridges and airports (including new projects, maintenance or both).
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
7 |
|
Question B: The advisability of increasing federal spending on roads, railways, bridges and airports is independent of whether the US also enacts tax cuts that substantially lower revenues.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Disagree |
6 |
|
Because labor markets across different sectors are connected, rising productivity in manufacturing leads the cost of labor-intensive services — such as education and health care — to rise.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Agree |
8 |
Comment: Fortunately, we haven't had much productivity growth in manufacturing -- so not much wage pressure. :-}
|
Question A: Since 1980, whenever substantial growth effects have been required to make a tax reform plan revenue neutral, the actual outcome has invariably been a fall in tax revenue as a share of GDP.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: Not a shred of evidence that U.S. tax cuts pay for themselves.
|
Question B: The tax reform plan proposed by President Trump this week would likely pay for itself through higher economic growth.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Disagree |
8 |
Strongly Disagree |
8 |
Comment: I'm not sure it should be called a 'plan' b/c it's so devoid of content. But absent offsetting tax increases, it would be a fiscal disaster
|
Question A: Implementing a "destination based cash flow tax (including border adjustment)" of the type advocated by Speaker Ryan would substantially reduce the US trade deficit within the next few years.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Disagree |
4 |
Comment: I'm reasonably persuaded by Auerbach and Holtz-Eakin, but I'm not certain that U.S. currency will fall one-for-one with the border tax
|
Question B: Implementing a “destination based cash flow tax (including border adjustment)” of the type advocated by Speaker Ryan would substantially raise prices for US consumers.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Disagree |
5 |
Comment: If dollar does not lose value to fully offset tax, then yes, consumer prices will rise.
|
Question A: Forecasting the effects of complex legislative actions is hard, so even competent, non-ideological and non-partisan projections could differ substantially from outcomes.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Strongly Agree |
9 |
Comment: "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." --Nils Bohr
|
Question B: Adjusting for legal restrictions on what the CBO can assume about future legislation and events, the CBO has historically issued credible forecasts of the effects of both Democratic and Republican legislative proposals.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: CBO has a good track record with a very difficult assignment. It errs, but not systematically or with partisan intent.
|
Question A: If the US significantly lowers the number of H-1B visas now, expected US tax revenues will rise materially over the next four years.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Disagree |
7 |
Disagree |
7 |
Comment: H1B workers are mostly high-paid employees at profitable firms. Cutting H1Bs will reduce profits and total wage payments and therefore taxes
|
Question B: If the US significantly lowers the number of H-1B visas now, employment for American workers will rise materially over the next four years.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Disagree |
7 |
Disagree |
6 |
Comment: H1Bs may slightly depress wages for high-skill workers. But they don't lower total jobs and they likely raise total profits and wages.
|
Providing state and local subsidies to build stadiums for professional sports teams is likely to cost the relevant taxpayers more than any local economic benefits that are generated.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
3 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: Hmm, Is this the most pressing economic issue of the moment? I wouldn't have thought so...
|
Question A: US share prices have risen since Donald Trump’s election victory at least partly because the policies he seems poised to implement are likely to increase US after-tax corporate profits.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
6 |
|
Question B: US share prices have risen since Donald Trump’s election victory at least partly because the policies he seems poised to implement are likely to increase US real GDP growth.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
4 |
Disagree |
5 |
Comment: Some policies likely to boost growth, at least temporarily. Others likely to suppress it. Hard to say!
|
The Council of Economic Advisors is likely to give the US president better policy advice if the Chair and Members of the CEA have published peer-reviewed economics research.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
9 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: Alongside bad military advice, bad economic advice has harmed many nations, citizens and presidents. A CEA head should know some economics!
|
Question A: If all of the “Seven actions to protect American workers” in President-elect Trump’s 100-day plan (see link) are enacted, it will more likely than not improve the economic prospects of middle-class Americans over the next decade.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
6 |
Strongly Disagree |
6 |
Comment: Many of these actions will make the average American poorer over the long run. Whether the long run arrives within 10 years is uncertain.
|
Question B: If all of the “Seven actions to protect American workers” in President-elect Trump’s 100-day plan are enacted, it will more likely than not improve the economic prospects of low-skilled Americans over the next decade.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Strongly Disagree |
6 |
Comment: Policies that raise import prices, deregulate dirty industries, and launch big infrastructure projects will boost non-college wages and jobs
|
A merger of AT&T and Time Warner would likely increase consumer surplus over the ensuing decade.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Disagree |
4 |
|
|
Long run fiscal sustainability in the US will require some combination of cuts in currently promised Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits and/or tax increases that include higher taxes on households with incomes below $250,000.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
6 |
|
Adding new or higher import duties on products such as air conditioners, cars, and cookies — to encourage producers to make them in the US — would be a good idea.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Disagree |
7 |
Strongly Disagree |
7 |
Comment: Taxing consumers to subsidize domestic production is bad economics and a violation of the WTO agreement.
|
Question A: Allowing US-based employers to hire many more immigrants with advanced degrees in science or engineering would lower (at least temporarily) the premium earned by current American workers with similar degrees.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: Labor demand curves are generally downward sloping
|
Question B: Allowing US-based employers to hire many more immigrants with advanced degrees in science or engineering would raise per capita income in the US over time.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: Much U.S. wealth comes from innovation, and foreign-born STEM workers are a huge contributor to that efffort
|
Question A: Because of the Brexit vote's outcome, the UK's real per-capita income level is likely to be lower a decade from now.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question B: Because of the Brexit vote's outcome, the rest of the EU's real per-capita income level is likely to be lower a decade from now.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Granting every American citizen over 21-years old a universal basic income of $13,000 a year — financed by eliminating all transfer programs (including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, housing subsidies, household welfare payments, and farm and corporate subsidies) — would be a better policy than the status quo.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Disagree |
6 |
|
|
The ratio of the 90th to the 10th percentile of the US income distribution has been unaffected by the Federal Reserve's unconventional monetary policies since the financial crisis.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
4 |
|
|
The “Cadillac tax” on expensive employer-provided health insurance plans will reduce costly distortions in US health care if it is allowed to take effect as scheduled in 2018.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: Like the mortgage interest deduction, the federal tax subsidy to employer-provided health insurance plans causes excess consumption.
|
Question A: The four largest domestic US banks currently have around 40% of the industry’s domestic assets (an average of 10% each). In early 1998, before Glass-Steagall ended and before Citicorp merged with Travelers, they held 13.2% (an average of 3.3% each). Thirty years ago, before interstate branching was fully permitted, that combined share was around 8% (an average of 2% each).Capping US banks’ size so that no single bank could be larger than 4% of the sector's domestic assets would lower systemic risk in the US.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
3 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question B: The US financial system would contribute more to the average American's welfare if the size of US banks were capped so that none could be larger than 4% of the sector's domestic assets.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
3 |
Uncertain |
4 |
|
Question A: By providing important measures of US economic performance — including employment, consumer prices, wages, job openings, time allocation in households, and productivity — the Bureau of Labor Statistics creates social benefits that exceed its annual cost of roughly $610 million.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Comment: The U.S. has lead the world in measuring and understanding its own economy. Willfully blinding ourselves would be a step towards darkness
|
Question B: Cuts in BLS spending would likely involve net social costs because potential declines in the quality of data, and thus their usefulness to researchers and decision makers, would exceed any budget savings.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Strongly Agree |
7 |
Comment: BLS data are at the heart of good policy in both the public and private sectors. It's a bargain relative to the public and private value.
|
An important reason why many workers in Michigan and Ohio have lost jobs in recent years is because US presidential administrations over the past 30 years have not been tough enough in trade negotiations.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Disagree |
8 |
Disagree |
6 |
Comment: Growing competition from China and Mexico has cost many manufacturing jobs in Ohio and Michigan. Weak negotiations are not the cause.
|
Question A: There is no perfect voting system. That is, no voting system can ensure that the winner will be the person who best represents voters’ wishes, including how intensely they favor or disfavor each candidate.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
9 |
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Comment: Just another day's work for Ken Arrow
|
Question B: One clear defect of a winner-take-all election with 3 or more candidates, and with each voter choosing only one candidate, is that a candidate who is strongly disliked by a majority, but strongly liked by a minority, can beat a candidate who is liked by a majority and disliked by relatively few.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
8 |
|
Large movements in monthly oil prices, either up or down, are driven primarily by speculators, as opposed to changes in the current (and planned) supply or demand for oil.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
1 |
Disagree |
7 |
|
Question A: If the UK opts to withdraw from the European Union, and assuming Scotland stays in the UK, the level of the UK's real per-capita income a decade later will be lower than if it remains part of the EU.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
Question B: If the UK exits the EU, then it substantially increases the chances that some other current region of the EU will also exit within the following decade.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: Once unraveling begins, it decreases both the benefits of staying and costs of exiting for the next ambivalent country.
|
China’s growth model, specifically the unusually high investment rate and low consumption rate, is unsustainable.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
6 |
|
An annual December spending surge on parties, gift-giving and personal travel delivers net social benefits.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Agree |
6 |
|
|
Question A: The Fed should raise its target interest rate when it meets in mid-December.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question B: The Fed should have raised interest rates sooner, rather than leaving them near zero for this long.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
3 |
Disagree |
6 |
|
Question A:Letting publicly traded US firms report earnings annually rather than quarterly would lead their executives to place more weight on long-term issues in their investments and other decisions.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
Question B: A switch from quarterly to annual earnings reports would, on net, benefit shareholders.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
Comparing their students’ average gains on standardized tests over the school year makes it easier to predict which teachers — all else equal — are more likely to improve their student’s long-term life outcomes.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: It's imperfect and can be refined, but there's no question this approach contains useful predictive info.
|
Question A: The association between health and economic growth in poor countries primarily involves faster growth generating better health, rather than the other way around.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question B: The decline in the fraction of people with incomes under, say, $1 per day is a good measure of whether well-being is improving among low-income populations.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: It's an okay start, but one could do much better! Why use a binary measure?
|
Question A:Expanding health insurance to more people through the ACA’s public subsidies and Medicaid expansion will reduce total healthcare spending in the economy.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Disagree |
6 |
Disagree |
6 |
Comment: First result from Oregon study: People with health insurance use more healthcare
|
Question B: Expanding health insurance to more people through the ACA’s public subsidies and Medicaid expansion will generate gains in the health and well-being of the newly insured that exceed the costs.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: That's just a prior. No evidence yet
|
Question A: If the federal minimum wage is raised gradually to $15-per-hour by 2020, the employment rate for low-wage US workers will be substantially lower than it would be under the status quo.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: I don't think the evidence supports the bold prediction that employment will be substantially lower. Not impossible, but no strong evidence.
|
Question B: Increasing the federal minimum wage gradually to $15-per-hour by 2020 would substantially increase aggregate output in the US economy.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
6 |
Disagree |
5 |
Comment: If it had any net positive effect, it would likely be very modest.
|
The median Greek citizen will be better off if there is a “yes” vote in the July 5 referendum on whether to accept the terms of the bailout package offered by Greece's creditors.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
Question A: Economic analysis can identify whether countries are using their exchange rates to benefit their own people at the expense of their trading partners’ welfare.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question B: Bank of Japan monetary policies that result in a weaker yen make Americans generally worse off.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Disagree |
5 |
|
Behavior in many complex and seemingly intractable strategic settings can be understood more clearly by working out what each party in the game will choose to do if they realize that the other parties will be solving the same problem. This insight has helped us understand behavior as diverse as military conflicts, price setting by competing firms and penalty kicking in soccer.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Comment: Many ambiguous predictions, but broad insights of game theory are relevant to infinite # of domains.
|
The 9% cumulative increase in real US median household income since 1980 substantially understates how much better off people in the median American household are now economically, compared with 35 years ago.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: I think it's more likely than not given secular improvements in healthcare, longevity, technology, and air quality.
|
Californians would be better off on average if all final users in the state paid the same price for water — adjusted for quality, place and time — even if, as a result, some food prices rose sharply and some farms failed.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
9 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: Does not have to bankrupt farmers: they can be given water rights to resell. Coase Theorem applies.
|
The Fed should wait until its preferred measure of inflation (Core PCE) is clearly rising — and not just forecast to rise — before it begins hiking interest rates.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: Tight labor markets raise many boats. Don't let the tide out prematurely.
|
Question A: Giving tax incentives to specific firms to locate operations in a city or state typically generates local benefits that outweigh the costs to the city and/or state providing the incentives.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question B: The US as a whole benefits when cities or states compete with each other by giving tax incentives to firms to locate operations in their jurisdictions.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Disagree |
5 |
Comment: I would agree if I were certain that governors had their states' long term interests in mind when cutting tax deals. Not sure that's true.
|
Question A:Declining to be vaccinated against contagious diseases such as measles imposes costs on other people, which is a negative externality.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Strongly Agree |
9 |
|
Question B: Considering the costs of restricting free choice, and the share of people in the US who choose not to vaccinate their children for measles, the social benefit of mandating measles vaccines for all Americans (except those with compelling medical reasons) would exceed the social cost.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
6 |
Agree |
7 |
|
In 10 years, per capita purchasing power in Greece will be higher if — rather than continuing to service its debts over the next decade and complying with the budget rules currently in place — it refuses to accept a continuation of its current troika program and explicitly defaults on its debt held by the official sector.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
Question A: Changing federal income tax rates, or the income bases to which those rates apply, can affect federal tax revenues partly by altering people’s behavior, and thus their actual or reported incomes.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Strongly Agree |
9 |
Comment: Well duh!
|
Question B: To the extent that a given tax change might affect revenues partly by affecting national-income growth, existing research provides enough guidance to generate informative bounds on the size of any growth-driven revenue effect.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
7 |
Uncertain |
6 |
Comment: We're still debating the impact of TFRA 86 on economic growth. Clearly, our confidence intervals are infinite for these predictions.
|
Question C: For large proposed changes in tax rates or the tax base, official revenue forecasts provided to Congress would probably be more accurate if the CBO and JCT tried to estimate fully how the proposed tax changes would affect growth-driven revenue.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
6 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: I feel that this type of projection is unwise: first-order impacts on policy but almost zero reliability. And it invites gaming.
|
Question A: Most college professors who assign textbooks would not be able to guess, within 10% of the actual figure, the retail price that their students pay for new copies of those books.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question B: Since students can resell college textbooks or rent electronic versions, the net burden on students is substantially lower than retail prices for new textbook purchases would suggest.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Agree |
7 |
|
Question C:Even though the professors who select textbooks are different form the people who pay for them, the price of new edition college textbooks reflect classic forces of supply and demand.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
8 |
Disagree |
5 |
Comment: Only if you include agency problems among the "standard forces" of supply and demand.
|
The recent decline in oil prices will promote higher real GDP in the US over the next couple of years.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
7 |
|
A US city hosting a big convention will enjoy a higher boost to incremental spending — holding the number of visitors and their average incomes fixed — if those visitors are auto dealers rather than economists.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: Not a lot of impulse spending among economists by my observation. You can charge them a lot for WiFi however.
|
A typical country can increase its citizens’ welfare by enacting policies that would increase its trade surplus (or decrease its trade deficit).
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
7 |
Disagree |
6 |
Comment: Perhaps in the very short run, but not in equilibrium.
|
Question A: Lowering the effective marginal tax rate on US corporations’ repatriated profits for a year would boost US capital investment significantly.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Disagree |
5 |
|
Question B: Permanently lowering the effective marginal tax rate on US corporations’ repatriated profits, such as by moving to a territorial-based tax system, would boost US capital investment significantly.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question A: By lowering bargaining costs, fast-track negotiating authority for the president makes it more likely that the U.S. can conclude major trade deals.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
7 |
|
Question B: Past major trade deals have benefited most Americans.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
7 |
|
Question A: Amazon has monopsony power in the market for books that is significantly reducing the supply of books.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
10 |
Disagree |
5 |
Comment: In general, Amazon is not using its monopsony to reduce supply. But in the case of Hachette books, it certainly is.
|
Question B:Amazon has sufficient monopsony power that regulatory intervention is likely to make consumers of books better off, taking into account implementation costs and the effect of intervention on incentives.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Disagree |
5 |
Comment: Intervention could be as simple as a stern warning. At present, Amazon is heading towards a market position that is anti-competitive.
|
The most powerful force pushing towards greater wealth inequality in the US since the 1970s is the gap between the after-tax return on capital and the economic growth rate.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
9 |
Disagree |
6 |
Comment: Not clear yet if wealth inequality has risen in U.S: different data sources give different answers. Premature to identify cause of non-fact!
|
Letting car services such as Uber or Lyft compete with taxi firms on equal footing regarding genuine safety and insurance requirements, but without restrictions on prices or routes, raises consumer welfare.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
7 |
Strongly Agree |
8 |
|
Although there are many issues for Scotland’s voters to consider, one consequence of separating from the rest of the UK would be greater macroeconomic instability for Scotland for many years.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question A: Because the US has underspent on new projects, maintenance, or both, the federal government has an opportunity to increase average incomes by spending more on roads, railways, bridges and airports. (The experts panel previously voted on this question on May 23, 2013. Those earlier results can be found here.)
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
6 |
|
Question B: Past experience of public spending and political economy suggests that if the government spent more on roads, railways, bridges and airports, many of the projects would have low or negative returns. (The experts panel previously voted on this question on May 23, 2013. Those earlier results can be found here.)
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
4 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question A: By discounting pension liabilities at high interest rates under government accounting standards, many U.S. state and local governments understate their pension liabilities and the costs of providing pensions to public-sector workers. (The experts panel previously voted on this question on October 1, 2012. Those earlier results can be found here.)
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
7 |
Question B: During the next two decades some U.S. states, unless they substantially increase taxes, cut spending, and/or change public-sector pensions, will require a combination of severe austerity budgets, a federal bailout, and/or default. (The experts panel previously voted on this question on October 1, 2012. Those earlier results can be found here.)
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
6 |
New technology for fracking natural gas, by lowering energy costs in the United States, will make US industrial firms more cost competitive and thus significantly stimulate the growth of US merchandise exports. (The experts panel previously voted on this question on May 23, 2012. Those earlier results can be found here.)
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question A: Because of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the U.S. unemployment rate was lower at the end of 2010 than it would have been without the stimulus bill. (The experts panel previously voted on this question on February 15, 2012. Those earlier results can be found here.)
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: Can never be certain, but evidence suggests that ARRA was effective in preventing the Great Recession from being even more calamitous.
|
Question B: Taking into account all of the ARRA’s economic consequences — including the economic costs of raising taxes to pay for the spending, its effects on future spending, and any other likely future effects — the benefits of the stimulus will end up exceeding its costs. (The experts panel previously voted on this question on February 15, 2012. Those earlier results can be found here.)
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
6 |
|
Legislation introduced in Congress would require the Federal Reserve to "submit to the appropriate congressional committees…a Directive Policy Rule", which shall "describe the strategy or rule of the Federal Open Market Committee for the systematic quantitative adjustment of the Policy Instrument Target to respond to a change in the Intermediate Policy Inputs." Should the Fed deviate from the rule, the Fed Chair would have to "testify before the appropriate congressional committees as to why the [rule]…is not in compliance." Enacting this provision would improve monetary policy outcomes in the U.S.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Disagree |
8 |
Disagree |
7 |
Comment: Preserving the Fed's autonomy is valuable. Imagine if Congress had been running the Fed during the Financial Crisis --- certain disaster!
|
Question A: All else equal, Patent Assertion Entities — which specialize in acquiring and asserting patents and are popularly known as “patent trolls" — promote innovation in the U.S.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Disagree |
7 |
Disagree |
5 |
|
Question B: Within the software industry, the US patent system makes consumers better off than they would be in the absence of patents.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Disagree |
5 |
Uncertain |
6 |
|
There is a social value to having institutions that issue liquid liabilities that are backed by illiquid assets.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Agree |
8 |
|
|
Question A: Employers that discriminate in hiring will be at a competitive disadvantage, if their customers do not care about their mix of employees, compared with firms that do not discriminate.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: I believe it in theory but I'm aware of no direct evidence after all these years.
|
Question B: Rising market wages are an important reason — over and above any changes in medical technology, social norms or preferences — why family sizes have fallen over the past century in rich countries.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
6 |
|
Considering both distributional effects and changes in efficiency, it is a good idea to let companies that send video or other content to consumers pay more to Internet service providers for the right to send that traffic using faster or higher quality service.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: Net neutrality is a fiction. Hire Akamai (et al.) to mirror your servers worldwide to speed content to your users. One user: Healthcare.gov!
-see background information here |
The recent oversubscribed debt issues of Greece and Portugal suggest that sovereign default by any euro area country is unlikely in the foreseeable future.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
4 |
Uncertain |
6 |
|
If the NCAA let colleges pay athletes with more than scholarships (which currently may cover tuition, books, room and board), then top colleges in men’s basketball and football would pay most athletes substantial sums beyond full scholarships.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
1 |
Agree |
7 |
|
Past experience suggests that economic sanctions do little to deter the target countries from their course of action.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
6 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: Not a good experiment, but sanctions appear effective sometimes, e.g., Iran, South Africa.
|
A market that allows payment for human kidneys should be established on a trial basis to help extend the lives of patients with kidney disease.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
7 |
|
Comment: Not enough info to answer. Not in favor of a kidney market that sells to highest bidder. Other ideas maybe. Question is not actionable.
|
Question A: Advancing automation has not historically reduced employment in the United States.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: Temporarily yes. Over the long run, no. Labor force participation has risen throughout most of the 20th century.
|
Question B: Information technology and automation are a central reason why median wages have been stagnant in the US over the past decade, despite rising productivity.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Uncertain |
6 |
Comment: Technology and trade/globalization are probably two largest factors. Would also include deunionization.
|
Future innovations worldwide will not be transformational enough to promote sustained per-capita economic growth rates in the U.S. and western Europe over the next century as high as those over the past 150 years.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Uncertain |
6 |
Comment: That's a ridiculously high bar to cross, since no other period in human history has ever seen anything like the last 150 years!
|
Informed postmortems of Ben Bernanke’s Fed chairmanship will judge favorably the Fed's creative and aggressive policy initiatives from autumn 2008 through early 2009.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: This is hearsay because I don't "do" monetary policy. But everything I've read says that Ben was extraordinarily creative and effective.
|
Using surge pricing to allocate transportation services — such as Uber does with its cars — raises consumer welfare through various potential channels, such as increasing the supply of those services, allocating them to people who desire them the most, and reducing search and queuing costs.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Agree |
8 |
Comment: Amazing that more things aren't price this way -- they should be.
|
Giving specific presents as holiday gifts is inefficient, because recipients could satisfy their preferences much better with cash.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
10 |
Disagree |
7 |
Comment: Are you serious? Presents serve multiple interpersonal purposes. Revealed preference indicates that income transfer is not the primary one.
|
Question A: The average US citizen would be better off if a larger number of low-skilled foreign workers were legally allowed to enter the US each year.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question B: Unless they were compensated by others, many low-skilled American workers would be substantially worse off if a larger number of low-skilled foreign workers were legally allowed to enter the US each year.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Disagree |
8 |
Agree |
6 |
|
In general, absent any inside information, an equity investor can expect to do better by choosing a well-diversified, low-cost index fund than by picking a few stocks.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Strongly Agree |
9 |
|
Question A: Enactment of the Senate bill to subject the Federal Reserve's monetary policy and discount window decisions to an audit by the Comptroller General of the U.S. would improve the Fed's legitimacy without hurting its decision making.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Strongly Disagree |
7 |
|
|
Question B: The Fed should not reduce its purchases of mortgage-backed securities and treasurys until there is clearer evidence of strong and sustained employment growth.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Allowing Internet service providers to charge content companies for access to the ISPs' customers would provide net benefits to consumers.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Disagree |
5 |
|
|
Question A: If the United States fails to make scheduled interest or principal payments on government debt securities, even as an unintended consequence of political brinksmanship, US families and businesses are likely to suffer severe economic harm.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
6 |
|
Question B: With or without a default, current uncertainty over future taxing and spending policies of the US government is likely to depress private investment and hiring by enough to reduce GDP growth by at least a quarter of a percentage point over the next 12 months.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
Experience over the past 30 years shows that for the typical emerging market nation facing rapid capital outflows, spending foreign currency reserves to defend its currency is a better policy for its citizens than not doing so.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
10 |
Disagree |
4 |
|
If regulators had not approved mergers in the past decade between major networked airlines, travelers would be better off today.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Uncertain |
4 |
|
Conventional economic reasoning suggests that it would be a good policy to enact the recent Senate bill that would let undergraduate students borrow through the government Stafford program at interest rates equivalent to the primary credit rates offered to banks through the Federal Reserve's discount window.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: College remains an excellent investment for most students, and the federal government is the appropriate lender for most borrowers.
|
An effective way to increase savings rates of employees whose firms have defined contribution plans is to combine automatic enrollment in those plans and periodic automatic increases in their contributions (with the ability to opt out of either).
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: No question that this is effective. Whether it's Pareto improving is open to debate.
|
Sustained tax and spending policies that boost consumption in ways that reduce the saving rate are likely to lower long-run living standards.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
7 |
|
Slavery in the United States was eradicated because of social and political events, not because it was an unprofitable institution for slaveholders.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
7 |
|
Restricting US exports of liquefied natural gas would have adverse effects on the US economy.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: This would primarily be a transfer from gas producers to U.S. industries and consumers. Welfare losses would probably be second order.
|
Question A: Because the US has underspent on new projects, maintenance, or both, the federal government has an opportunity to increase average incomes by spending more on roads, railways, bridges and airports.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
6 |
|
Question B: Past experience of public spending and political economy suggests that if the government spent more on roads, railways, bridges and airports, many of the projects would have low or negative returns.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
6 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: Some will have low returns, of course. But the mean and median rate of return will likely be favorable.
|
Reducing the income-tax deductibility of charitable gifts is a less distortionary way to raise new revenue than raising the same amount of revenue through a proportional increase in all marginal tax rates.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: Taxpayers subsidize too much non-meritorious activity through the tax writeoff. Tax liability should not fall 1-for-1 with charitable giving
|
A bitcoin's value derives solely from the belief that others will want to use it for trade, which implies that its purchasing power is likely to fluctuate over time to a degree that will limit its usefulness.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
6 |
|
Countries that let their debt loads get high risk losing control of their own fiscal sustainability, through an adverse feedback loop in which doubts by lenders lead to higher government bond rates, which in turn make debt problems more severe.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: This is generically true, but we don't the threshold where it matters. And not clearly true for countries that borrow in their own currency.
|
Refusing to liberalize trade unless partner countries adopt new labor or environmental rules is a bad policy, because even if the new standards would reduce distortions on some dimensions, such a policy involves threatening to maintain large distortions in the form of restricted trade.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: When countries adopt beggar-thy-neighbor trade/currency policies, bilateral trade agreements are a powerful tool for disciplining behavior
|
Using government funds to guarantee preschool education for four-year olds would yield a much lower social return than the ones achieved by the most highly touted targeted preschool initiatives.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Uncertain |
4 |
Comment: Contemporary research has not reproduced the miracles seen in Perry, Abecedarian and Early Learning.
|
Question A:
Raising the federal minimum wage to $9 per hour would make it noticeably harder for low-skilled workers to find employment.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
6 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: I'm not aware of any strong evidence demonstrating this result.
|
Question B:The distortionary costs of raising the federal minimum wage to $9 per hour and indexing it to inflation are sufficiently small compared with the benefits to low-skilled workers who can find employment that this would be a desirable policy.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: Decades of research on the minimum wage in the U.S. find that the distortionary effects are quite small.
|
The average US citizen would be better off if a larger number of highly educated foreign workers were legally allowed to immigrate to the US each year.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
7 |
|
The persistent deflation in Japan since 1997 could have been avoided had the Bank of Japan followed different monetary policies.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Agree |
6 |
|
|
Because all federal spending and taxes must be approved by both houses of Congress and the executive branch, a separate debt ceiling that has to be increased periodically creates unneeded uncertainty and can potentially lead to worse fiscal outcomes.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: The question contains its own answer.
|
The federal government would make the average U.S. citizen better off by using policies that directly focus more on increasing small business growth than growth of economic output overall.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
3 |
Disagree |
6 |
Comment: Targeted sectoral subsidies almost always a special interest boondoggle. And why does small business helps average citizen more than large?
|
The annual indexing of Social Security benefits to increases in the consumer price index for urban wage earners and clerical workers (the CPI-W) leads to higher benefits than would be required to compensate recipients for genuine cost-of-living increases.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
6 |
Comment: Not certain that inflation faced by elderly corresponds perfectly to inflation faced by urban wage earners and clerical workers.
|
The Brookings Institution recently described a US carbon tax of $20 per ton, increasing at 4% per year, which would raise an estimated $150 billion per year in federal revenues over the next decade. Given the negative externalities created by carbon dioxide emissions, a federal carbon tax at this rate would involve fewer harmful net distortions to the US economy than a tax increase that generated the same revenue by raising marginal tax rates on labor income across the board.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: Taxing negative externalities reduces economic distortions; taxing labor creates them. This is the tax equivalent of a free lunch!
|
Question A: Because federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid will continue to grow under current policy beyond the 10-year window of most political budget debates, it is easy for a politician to devise a budget plan that would reduce federal deficits over the next decade without really making the U.S. fiscally sustainable.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
7 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: With or w/o Medicare, it's hard to do a budget that fixes federal deficits over 10 yrs. But ignoring Med makes it easier than it should be!
|
Question B: Comparing two plans that would reduce federal budget deficits by identical amounts in each of the next 10 years, one that did so partly by reducing significantly the long-term growth rate of Medicare and Medicaid spending would do more to make the U.S. budget fiscally sustainable than one that did not lower the growth of these spending programs.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: Rising health care costs are the greatest threat to U.S. fiscal solvency (that we know of) looking over multiple decades.
|
Question A: Taking into account all of the economic consequences — including the incentives of banks to ensure their own liquidity and solvency in the future — the benefits of bailing out U.S. banks in 2008 will end up exceeding the costs.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: Long term unemployed workers are costly; many collect SSDI. Aiding GM was likely a cost effective welfare/employment program, all else aside
|
Question B: Because GM and Chrysler were bailed out in 2008-09, the U.S. unemployment rate was lower at the end of 2010 than it would it have been if Congress and the executive branch had not intervened.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: Putting costs aside, this is almost certainly true since many displaced workers would not have found reemployment by now in bad economy.
|
Question C: Taking into account all of the economic consequences — including effects on corporate managers' incentives and on creditors' expectations of how their claims will be treated in future bankruptcies — the benefits of bailing out GM and Chrysler will end up exceeding the costs.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Uncertain |
6 |
|
Question A: The U.S government should make further efforts to shrink the size of the country's largest banks — such as by capping the size of their liabilities or penalizing large banks more heavily through taxes or other means — because the existing regulations do not require the biggest banks to internalize enough of the "too-big-to-fail" risks that they pose.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Agree |
6 |
|
|
Question B:The economic benefits to the U.S. of having a handful of banks with balance sheets greater than $1 trillion are small.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Agree |
5 |
|
|
Question A: The federal government would make the average U.S. citizen better off by using policies that directly focus more on increasing manufacturing employment than employment in other sectors.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Disagree |
6 |
Comment: Holding wages constant, manufacturing jobs appeal more to non-college males, the group whose employment rate is falling most rapidly.
|
Question B: Because firms and inventors do not capture the full returns from research and development, the government would increase the average well-being of Americans (and potentially of others too) by favoring R&D using the tax code.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
5 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: Unclear if R&D credits induce R&D at the margin or mostly reward inframarginal R&D. I prefer govt fund basic research directly (NIH, NSF).
|
Question A: Consider one of two proposals for restraining future Medicare spending, each by the same amount: The method that President Obama enacted in the Affordable Care Act — reducing Medicare-related payments to private insurers and altering the payment system for doctors and hospitals — imposes risks on future Medicare patients because over time the supply of doctors, hospitals and insurers willing to offer them health services may decline in response to restrained payments.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: Obamacare is a risky step into the unknown; The alternative of voucher-care is a faith-based exercise, already disproved by the evidence.
|
Question B: Consider the other of two proposals for restraining future Medicare spending, each by the same amount: The method that Governor Romney advocates — giving future seniors a fixed payment for premiums and letting private insurers compete with Medicare — imposes risks on future Medicare patients because competition may not be powerful to enough to offer future seniors the same quality of care that is currently promised without supplementing their premium support.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: There is no evidence that private sector is more effective at healthcare cost control than public sector. Privatization only shifts costs.
|
Claims by incumbent presidents and challengers about how many private-sector jobs can be created in a four-year period by sector-level or other targeted policies should be viewed as rough guesses, because overall macroeconomic conditions drive aggregate employment in ways that dominate any net effects of polices that focus on specific industries or households.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Agree |
8 |
|
Question A: One drawback of taxing capital income at a lower rate than labor income is that it gives people incentives to relabel income that policymakers find hard to categorize as "capital" rather than labor".
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
9 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: See work of Diamond and Saez in JEP: The Case for a Progressive Tax: From Basic Research to Policy Recommendations
-see background information here |
Question B: Despite relabeling concerns, taxing capital income at a permanently lower rate than labor income would result in higher average long-term prosperity, relative to an alternative that generated the same amount of tax revenue by permanently taxing capital and labor income at equal rates instead.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: My fear is that the distortions from relabeling the potential gains from lower capital taxes in the second best world in which we live.
|
Question C: Although they do not always agree about the precise likely effects of different tax policies, another reason why economists often give disparate advice on tax policy is because they hold differing views about choices between raising average prosperity and redistributing income.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
7 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: Main reasons: diffs in social prefs and differ in priors about "elasticity" of responses to taxes + regs. Most agree on signs not magnitudes
|
Question A: By discounting pension liabilities at high interest rates under government accounting standards, many U.S. state and local governments understate their pension liabilities and the costs of providing pensions to public-sector workers.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: See the persuasive article by Robert Novy-Marx and Joshua Rauh in the Journal of Economic Perspectives in 2009.
-see background information here |
Question B: During the next two decades some U.S. states, unless they substantially increase taxes, cut spending, and/or change public-sector pensions, will require a combination of severe austerity budgets, a federal bailout, and/or default.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
10 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: This is always and everywhere true.
|
Question A: Even if the third round of quantitative easing that the Fed recently announced increases real GDP growth over the next two years, the increase will be inconsequential.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
Question B: Even if the third round of quantitative easing that the Fed recently announced increases annual consumer price inflation over the next five years, the increase will be inconsequential.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
Question C:Even if inflationary pressures rise substantially as a result of quantitative easing and low interest rates, the Federal Reserve has ample tools to rein inflation back in if it chooses to do so.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Agree |
5 |
|
|
Question A: Ethanol content requirements and protectionism against imported ethanol (which includes fuel from sugarcane) raise food prices without significantly reducing carbon-dioxide emissions.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
9 |
Agree |
7 |
|
Question B: A direct disincentive to emit carbon-dioxide, for example through a carbon tax or an emissions permit market, is more efficient than requiring the use of corn-based ethanol fuels.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Strongly Agree |
8 |
|
Question A: Even if all the official-sector funding that Greece received from 2010 through August 2012 is written off, propping up Greece to buy time for the rest of Europe to prepare for Greek default has been better for citizens of the Eurozone outside of Greece than a policy that would have cut off funding sooner.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
Question B: A substantial sovereign-debt default by some combination of Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain is a necessary condition for the euro area as a whole to grow at its pre-crisis trend rate over the next three years.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Disagree |
5 |
|
|
Question C: Unless there is a substantial default by some combination of Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain on their sovereign debt and commercial bank debt, plus credible reforms to prevent excessive borrowing in the future, the euro area is headed for a costly financial meltdown and a prolonged recession.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
4 |
|
|
The current trade barriers in the U.S. sugar industry raise the profits of sugar producers and make the typical U.S. consumer pay more for sugar and goods that use sugar as an input.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: FM Scherer did a cogent analysis of the Sugar Quota system as a Harvard Kennedy School case many years ago.
|
Question A: Loans to students attending for-profit colleges are especially risky because students attending them have had default rates that greatly exceed those for comparable students attending public and non-profit private institutions.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: See Deming, Goldin and Katz 2012 in Journal of Economic Perspectives
-see background information here |
Question B: Rules that tie each college's eligibility for federal student loans to its students' graduation rates and post-schooling employment outcomes would better protect taxpayers from losses on student loans.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Question A: The way in which money market funds normally trade – at one dollar per share, even though the per-share value of the assets backing them varies over time – made them vulnerable to a run in 2008 before they received taxpayer guarantees.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Agree |
8 |
|
|
Question B: Taxpayers would be better protected if each money market fund in the U.S. were instead required to trade at its floating net asset value.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
7 |
|
|
Question C: In the absence of floating net asset values, taxpayers would be better protected if each money market fund in the U.S. were required to set aside capital to protect against losses while holding back a portion of shareholders' cash for a time when they seek to withdraw all of their money.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
Taxes or bans on large bottles of soft drinks containing sugar are not likely to have a significant effect on obesity rates because people will substitute towards consuming excessive calories in other ways.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: Unlikely to have an impact, but worth evaluating!
|
Subjecting online sales from out-of-state vendors to the same retail sales taxes imposed on in-state sales would raise more tax revenue in the states making this change while reducing the pro-online bias of current policy.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: Papers by Goolsbee, Ellison and Ellison, and Einav and Levin show that this is unambiguously correct.
|
Consumers would not necessarily be better off if cable and satellite TV firms were required to offer a la carte pricing for individual channels, because the networks' programming charges and the satellite-and-cable fees could adjust in response to this rule.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
1 |
Agree |
5 |
|
Long run fiscal sustainability in the U.S. will require cuts in currently promised Medicare and Medicaid benefits and/or tax increases that include higher taxes on households with incomes below $250,000.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Agree |
8 |
Comment: The mixture of rising government spending on healthcare and extremely low U.S. tax-rates is unsustainable.
|
Question A:Assuming that Germany eventually agrees to backstop the debt of southern European countries, the eurozone as a whole will be better off if that bailout is unconditional, rather than accompanied by the labor market reforms and future budget controls that Germany is demanding of countries in return.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Disagree |
6 |
|
|
Question B: If Germany fails to bail out the southern tier of Europe, its own economy will be hurt more — because of output and asset losses — than it would be by an unconditional bailout.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
Question C: The main reason other eurozone countries need to worry about Greek banks losing access to ECB support is because the ensuing chaos in Greece could trigger bank runs in peripheral countries.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
6 |
|
Question A: A cut in federal income tax rates in the US right now would lead to higher GDP within five years than without the tax cut.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question B: A cut in federal income tax rates in the US right now would raise taxable income enough so that the annual total tax revenue would be higher within five years than without the tax cut.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Disagree |
8 |
Strongly Disagree |
7 |
Comment: Not aware of any evidence in recent history where tax cuts actually raise revenue. Sorry, Laffer.
|
Question A: Trade with China makes most Americans better off because, among other advantages, they can buy goods that are made or assembled more cheaply in China.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
9 |
Agree |
8 |
|
Question B: Some Americans who work in the production of competing goods, such as clothing and furniture, are made worse off by trade with China.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Agree |
8 |
Comment: Please see my paper with David Dorn and Gordon Hanson, "The China Syndrome: Local Labor Market Impacts of Import Competition in the U.S."
-see background information here |
An important reason why private college and university tuition has risen faster than the CPI during the past few decades is because competition for faculty members — whose potential earnings in other sectors have steadily improved — has driven up their pay faster than their productivity.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
4 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: Maybe top colleges set a price at whatever insurer (or government lender) will pay then charge a co-pay to extract remaining surplus...
|
If the fiscal changes that are planned under current US law take place next year — including Bush era tax cuts expiring, Medicare payment rates to doctors being cut, the AMT applying to many more taxpayers, and automatic cuts in defense and non-defense discretionary spending kicking in — then US real GDP growth in 2013 will be lower than it would be under the CBO's alternative fiscal scenario, in which the above changes do not occur.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: Nevertheless, I'd rather go over the 'fiscal cliff' than renew our irresponsible and unsustainable spend-don't-tax policies.
|
New technology for fracking natural gas, by lowering energy costs in the United States, will make US industrial firms more cost competitive and thus significantly stimulate the growth of US merchandise exports.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
2 |
Disagree |
5 |
Comment: Natural gas prices will fall, but this may affect world price as much as U.S. price. Not sure whether U.S. production affects U.S. price.
|
Cuba’s low per-capita income growth — 1.2 percent per year since 1960 —has more to do with Cuba’s own economic policies than with the U.S. embargo on trade and tourism.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: Cuba is stuck in the 1950s primarily due to its internal policies not external constraints.
|
Question A: Reducing the minimum retirement age in France from 62 back to age 60, permanently, would reduce long-term French economic growth and substantially raise French debt relative to GDP over time.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: Lifespans are getting substantially longer. Working lives must get somewhat longer too to cover the cost of decades-long retirements.
|
Question B: France’s overall employment is higher today because of the 35 hour work week than it would be without a limit on weekly hours.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
6 |
Disagree |
6 |
Comment: Raising employer costs does not create more employment.
|
Connecticut should pass its Senate Bill 60, which states that during a “severe weather event emergency, no person within the chain of distribution of consumer goods and services shall sell or offer to sell consumer goods or services for a price that is unconscionably excessive.”
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
7 |
Disagree |
6 |
Comment: It's generally efficient to use the price mechanism to allocate scarce goods, e.g., umbrellas on a rainy day. Banning this is unwise.
|
The former head of the Transportation Security Administration is correct in arguing that randomizing airport “security procedures encountered by passengers (additional upper-torso pat-downs, a thorough bag search, a swab test of carry-ons, etc.), while not subjecting everyone to the full gamut" would make it "much harder for terrorists to learn how to evade security procedures."
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: Giving TSA officers discretion is a good idea; simply randomizing some procedures does not prevent terrorists learning
|
Laws that limit the resale of tickets for entertainment and sports events make potential audience members for those events worse off on average.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
7 |
|
Prior to the crisis, the benefits from the funding advantage that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had by virtue of perceived government support mostly went to their shareholders, rather than into substantially lower interest rates on residential mortgages.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
Question A: If public school students had the option of taking the government money (local, state, federal) currently being spent on their own education and turning that money into vouchers that they could use towards covering the costs of any private school or public school of their choice (e.g. charter schools), most would be better off.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
6 |
Uncertain |
6 |
Comment: Worry: only families willing to supplement the public subsidy would get excellent education for their kids. This is what happens in Chile.
|
Question B: The main drawback to allowing all public school students to take the government money (local, state, federal) currently being spent on their own education and turning that money into vouchers that they could use towards covering the costs of any private school or public school of their choice (e.g. charter schools) would be that some students would not make an active choice and would be left with much worse peers and a weaker school.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
6 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: That's one drawback but not necessarily the main one. I'm worried about equilibrium quality of schools that don't charge top-ups.
|
Question A: The average size of the 19 financial firms that just completed the Federal Reserve stress tests (i.e. the CCAR) would be substantially smaller if they did not have implicit government support.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Question B: The 19 financial firms that just completed the Federal Reserve stress tests (i.e. the CCAR) are big primarily because of economies of scale and scope, rather than because of implicit government support.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
5 |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
Changes in U.S. gasoline prices over the past 10 years have predominantly been due to market factors rather than U.S. federal economic or energy policies.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
8 |
|
Question A: Freer trade improves productive efficiency and offers consumers better choices, and in the long run these gains are much larger than any effects on employment.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
8 |
Agree |
8 |
Comment: Not sure how to compare the gains to consumers with long run effects on employment. They might both be positive!
|
Question B: On average, citizens of the U.S. have been better off with the North American Free Trade Agreement than they would have been if the trade rules for the U.S., Canada and Mexico prior to NAFTA had remained in place.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
6 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: NAFTA was small potatoes relative to rising China trade. My hunch is that both costs and benefits were modest.
|
Because the U.S. Treasury bailed out and backstopped banks (by injecting equity into them in late 2008, and later committing to provide public capital to any banks that failed the stress tests and could not raise private capital), the U.S. unemployment rate was lower at the end of 2010 than it would have been without these measures.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
6 |
|
Loosening current licensing restrictions on the range of services that nurses, physician assistants, dental hygienists and pharmacists are permitted to perform would help patients on balance, because the additional safety risks would be small compared to the decreased costs in waiting time and fees.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
8 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: Lots of evidence that occupational licensing is excessive. But I cannot speak specifically about the medical profession.
-see background information here |
Bans on the short selling of financial securities, such as stocks and government bonds, lead to prices that are further, on average, from their fundamental values.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Agree |
5 |
|
|
Question A: Because of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the U.S. unemployment rate was lower at the end of 2010 than it would have been without the stimulus bill.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
7 |
Agree |
7 |
|
Question B:Taking into account all of the ARRA’s economic consequences — including the economic costs of raising taxes to pay for the spending, its effects on future spending, and any other likely future effects — the benefits of the stimulus will end up exceeding its costs.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Uncertain |
6 |
|
Local ordinances that limit rent increases for some rental housing units, such as in New York and San Francisco, have had a positive impact over the past three decades on the amount and quality of broadly affordable rental housing in cities that have used them.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Disagree |
8 |
Disagree |
6 |
Comment: Rent control discourages supply of rental units. Incumbent renters benefit from capped prices. New renters face reduced rental options.
|
Question A:
The typical chief executive officer of a publicly traded corporation in the U.S. is paid more than his or her marginal contribution to the firm's value.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Uncertain |
3 |
Uncertain |
4 |
|
Question B:Mandating that U.S. publicly listed corporations must allow shareholders to cast a non-binding vote on executive compensation was a good idea.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
6 |
Uncertain |
5 |
Comment: I weakly disagree. I suspect that this requirement is ineffective -- so it silences some critics without solving any agency problems.
|
One of the leading reasons for rising U.S. income inequality over the past three decades is that technological change has affected workers with some skill sets differently than others.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Agree |
7 |
Comment: It's not the only factor. Two others: slowing supply of skilled workers, and (probably) distorted pay-setting at the very top.
|
Question A:If the US replaced its discretionary monetary policy regime with a gold standard, defining a "dollar" as a specific number of ounces of gold, the price-stability and employment outcomes would be better for the average American.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
4 |
Strongly Disagree |
8 |
|
Question B: There are many factors besides US inflation risk that influence the current dollar price of gold.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Strongly Agree |
9 |
|
|
In general, using more congestion charges in crowded transportation networks — such as higher tolls during peak travel times in cities, and peak fees for airplane takeoff and landing slots — and using the proceeds to lower other taxes would make citizens on average better off.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Strongly Agree |
8 |
A tax on the carbon content of fuels would be a less expensive way to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions than would a collection of policies such as “corporate average fuel economy” requirements for automobiles.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
10 |
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Comment: See Chris Knittel's forthcoming paper in Journal of Economic Perspectives on this topic: Reducing Petroleum Consumption from Transportation
|
Question A: All else equal, making drugs illegal raises street prices for those drugs because suppliers require extra compensation for the risk of incarceration and other punishments.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
9 |
Agree |
8 |
Comment: See AER paper by Carlos Dobkin and Nancy Nicosi on price effects of the U.S. government's disruption of the methamphetamine market
-see background information here |
Question B: The Netherlands restrictions on “soft drugs” combined with a moderate tax aimed at deterring their consumption would have lower social costs than continuing to prohibit use of those drugs as in the US. (Click here for a summary of the Netherlands restrictions.)
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
5 |
Comment: Marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol. Criminal enforcement for minor marijuana infractions is a waste of societal resources.
|
Question A:Credible assumptions for inflation, GDP growth and primary budget deficits in Italy imply that either the Debt-to-GDP ratio in Italy would increase sharply if Italian interest rates on 10-year government debt remained at the November 30 level of around 7 percent or Italy would lose access to the bond market.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Agree |
6 |
|
|
Question B:Absent outside help to deal with runs, such as a pledge of fiscal support from Germany or an unlimited commitment by the ECB to buy bonds, there is no spending-and-tax plan Italy can announce that would be credible enough to hold its interest rates low enough to stabilize its Debt-to-GDP ratio.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
No Opinion |
Uncertain |
5 |
|
|
There are no consequential distortions created by the tax preference that favors obtaining health insurance through employers.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Disagree |
8 |
Strongly Disagree |
8 |
Comment: We need consumers of healthcare to be *less* insulated from the price system, not more. The tax credit provides insulation and subsidy!
|
Federal mandates that government purchases should be “buy American” unless there are exceptional circumstances, such as in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, have a significant positive impact on U.S. manufacturing employment.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
4 |
Disagree |
5 |
Comment: Hard to believe this does much at all. But I'm speaking based on my prior. I've not seen any rigorous analysis.
|
Question A: Eliminating tax deductions for non-investment personal interest expenses (e.g., on mortgages), with reductions in personal tax rates that are both budget neutral and keep the burden of taxes by income group the same, would lead to more efficient financing decisions by individuals.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
9 |
Agree |
7 |
|
Question B: Reducing the deductibility of interest expenses for non-financial businesses to equalize the overall tax cost of debt and equity financing, while using the extra revenue to reduce personal and corporate tax rates in a budget neutral fashion that also keeps the burden of taxes the same, would lead to more efficient financing decisions by firms.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Agree |
7 |
|
Question A: Unless they have inside information, very few investors, if any, can consistently make accurate predictions about whether the price of an individual stock will rise or fall on a given day.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Strongly Agree |
8 |
Comment: Experts are generally no better than the rest of us -- often worse.
|
Question B: Plausible expectations of future dividends, discounted using a plausible risk-adjusted interest rate, explain well the level of stock prices for recently listed internet businesses in 1999.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Disagree |
9 |
Disagree |
7 |
Comment: We were in a bubble. There were not enough future profits in the world to justify those prices.
|
The Chinese government pursues policies that keep the renminbi's exchange rate vis à vis the dollar lower than it would be if the currency floated without those policies.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Agree |
5 |
Agree |
6 |
Comment: That is my understanding, but this is second-hand information, not my area of expertise.
|
Public school students would receive a higher quality education if they all had the option of taking the government money (local, state, federal) currently being spent on their own education and turning that money into vouchers that they could use towards covering the costs of any private school or public school of their choice (e.g. charter schools).
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
6 |
Uncertain |
6 |
Comment: Maddeningly sweeping! Some students would benefit and the average effect might indeed be positive. But some students would surely be harmed.
|
Question A: All else equal, permanently raising the federal marginal tax rate on ordinary income by 1 percentage point for those in the top (i.e., currently 35%) tax bracket would increase federal tax revenue over the next 10 years.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Strongly Agree |
9 |
Agree |
8 |
Comment: We are nowhere near the downward sloping side of the Laffer curve.
|
Question B:The cumulative budget shortfalls in the US over the next 10 years can be reduced by half (or more) purely by increasing the federal marginal tax rate on ordinary income for those in the top tax bracket.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
6 |
Disagree |
7 |
Comment: Unfortunately, not enough income there to do it (I think)
|
All else equal, the Fed's new plan to increase the maturity of its Treasury holdings will boost expected real GDP growth for calendar year 2012 by at least one percentage point.
Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
Disagree |
3 |
Disagree |
4 |
Comment: 1pct increase in real GDP growth is a huge effect! If only it were that easy...
|