US Economic Experts Panel

The Clark Center for Global Markets explores economists’ views on vital policy issues via our US and European Economic Experts Panels. We regularly poll over 80 economists on a range of timely and relevant topics. Panelists not only have the opportunity to respond to a poll’s statements, but an opportunity to comment and provide additional resources, if they wish. The Clark Center then shares the results with the public in a straightforward and concise format.

Please note that from September 2022, the language in our polls will use just two modifiers to refer to the size of an effect:

‘Substantial’: when an effect is large enough that it would make a difference that matters for the behavior involved.
‘Measurable’: when the direction of the effect is clear, but perhaps experts would differ as to whether it is substantial.

Trade Deals

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.

Responses

Source: Clark Center Economic Experts Panel
Methodology

Clark Center Economic Experts Panel

March 27, 2013

Early Education

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.

Responses

Source: Clark Center Economic Experts Panel
Methodology

Clark Center Economic Experts Panel

March 12, 2013

Minimum Wage

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statements:

A: Raising the federal minimum wage to $9 per hour would make it noticeably harder for low-skilled workers to find employment.

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.

Clark Center Economic Experts Panel

February 26, 2013

High-Skilled Immigrants

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statement:

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.

Clark Center Economic Experts Panel

February 12, 2013

Japan’s Deflation

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statement:

The persistent deflation in Japan since 1997 could have been avoided had the Bank of Japan followed different monetary policies.

Business Cycles, Recessions, & Crises

January 29, 2013

Debt Ceiling

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statement:

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.

Clark Center Economic Experts Panel

January 15, 2013

Small Firms

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statement:

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.

Business, Management, & Corporate Performance

January 8, 2013

Indexing

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statement:

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.

Clark Center Economic Experts Panel

December 18, 2012

Carbon Taxes II

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statement:

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.

Clark Center Economic Experts Panel

December 4, 2012

Ten-Year Budgets

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statements:

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.

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.

Clark Center Economic Experts Panel

November 20, 2012