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Tue 8 Jun, 2010 03:53 pm
Quote:Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?
Self-identified liberals and Democrats do badly on questions of basic economics
By DANIEL B. KLEIN
Who is better informed about the policy choices facing the country"liberals, conservatives or libertarians? According to a Zogby International survey that I write about in the May issue of Econ Journal Watch, the answer is unequivocal: The left flunks Econ 101.
Zogby researcher Zeljka Buturovic and I considered the 4,835 respondents' (all American adults) answers to eight survey questions about basic economics. We also asked the respondents about their political leanings: progressive/very liberal; liberal; moderate; conservative; very conservative; and libertarian.
Rather than focusing on whether respondents answered a question correctly, we instead looked at whether they answered incorrectly. A response was counted as incorrect only if it was flatly unenlightened.
Consider one of the economic propositions in the December 2008 poll: "Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable." People were asked if they: 1) strongly agree; 2) somewhat agree; 3) somewhat disagree; 4) strongly disagree; 5) are not sure.
Basic economics acknowledges that whatever redeeming features a restriction may have, it increases the cost of production and exchange, making goods and services less affordable. There may be exceptions to the general case, but they would be atypical.
Therefore, we counted as incorrect responses of "somewhat disagree" and "strongly disagree." This treatment gives leeway for those who think the question is ambiguous or half right and half wrong. They would likely answer "not sure," which we do not count as incorrect.
In this case, percentage of conservatives answering incorrectly was 22.3%, very conservatives 17.6% and libertarians 15.7%. But the percentage of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly was 67.6% and liberals 60.1%. The pattern was not an anomaly.
The other questions were: 1) Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services (unenlightened answer: disagree). 2) Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago (unenlightened answer: disagree). 3) Rent control leads to housing shortages (unenlightened answer: disagree). 4) A company with the largest market share is a monopoly (unenlightened answer: agree). 5) Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (unenlightened answer: agree). 6) Free trade leads to unemployment (unenlightened answer: agree). 7) Minimum wage laws raise unemployment (unenlightened answer: disagree).
How did the six ideological groups do overall? Here they are, best to worst, with an average number of incorrect responses from 0 to 8: Very conservative, 1.30; Libertarian, 1.38; Conservative, 1.67; Moderate, 3.67; Liberal, 4.69; Progressive/very liberal, 5.26.
Americans in the first three categories do reasonably well. But the left has trouble squaring economic thinking with their political psychology, morals and aesthetics.
To be sure, none of the eight questions specifically challenge the political sensibilities of conservatives and libertarians. Still, not all of the eight questions are tied directly to left-wing concerns about inequality and redistribution. In particular, the questions about mandatory licensing, the standard of living, the definition of monopoly, and free trade do not specifically challenge leftist sensibilities.
Yet on every question the left did much worse. On the monopoly question, the portion of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly (31%) was more than twice that of conservatives (13%) and more than four times that of libertarians (7%). On the question about living standards, the portion of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly (61%) was more than four times that of conservatives (13%) and almost three times that of libertarians (21%).
The survey also asked about party affiliation. Those responding Democratic averaged 4.59 incorrect answers. Republicans averaged 1.61 incorrect, and Libertarians 1.26 incorrect.
Adam Smith described political economy as "a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator." Governmental power joined with wrongheadedness is something terrible, but all too common. Realizing that many of our leaders and their constituents are economically unenlightened sheds light on the troubles that surround us.
Source: WSJ
@Finn dAbuzz,
I most certainly agree, John - your post does explain a lot....
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/06/are-you-smarter-than-george-mason.html
Quote:6.08.2010
Are You Smarter Than a George Mason University Economics Professor?
by Nate Silver @ 4:23 PM
I first came across this study by George Mason University's Daniel Klein and Zogby International's Zeljka Buturovic, which appeared as a journal article in Econ Journal Watch, which Klein edits, in a link at Tyler Cowen's site several weeks ago. Cowen links to about a dozen interesting pieces every day, and I thought Klein's study was so obviously flawed that it wasn't really worth commenting on. But now it has re-appeared in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, with the somewhat non-sequitur title, "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?".
Here's what Klein and Buturovic did. They took a survey using one of Zogby's internet panels, which is by far the worst polling instrument that they could have selected. The panel was not weighted and was not in balance. For example, McCain led Obama 49-43 among respondents to the survey, even though roughly the opposite outcome was observed in the actual election -- and only about 4 percent of the respondents were Hispanic and only 39 percent were female. Then they asked 16 "questions of basic economics", as the Journal's sub-head describes them, and arbitrarily included eight of them in their analysis but threw the other eight out.
If you were expecting fifth grade questions about supply and demand, you'd be wrong. Let me just say: I come at this as a University of Chicago economics graduate who indeed disagrees with the liberal orthodoxy on many economic matters. But questions such as "[Does] poverty cause crime?", which was one of the questions that Klein and Buturovic excluded without explanation, are more like Zen meditations than matters of basic economics.
Others were poorly phrased, for instance: "A company that has the largest market share is a monopoly?". This is confusing; having the largest market share is a necessary, though hardly sufficient, condition for being a monopoly, and no alternative definitions were presented. Is this question really an objective basis for determining whether someone is more or less "enlightened" (that's actually the term that Klein uses!) about economics?
Some come closer to having a technically correct answer, but are more within the realm of trivia. For instance, "In the USA, more often than not, rich people were born rich?". Notwithstanding that the definition of "rich" is ambiguous, you could probably develop an empirical answer for this question based around studies of social mobility. But unless you'd spent a great deal of time reading the academic literature on mobility -- something that few laypeople will do -- there's really no way that you'd know it.
Finally, there are some questions about which there is considerable disagreement even within circles of academic economists -- as Klein should know, since he's commissioned several surveys of them. Economists are about evenly split, for instance, when it comes to the minimum wage. There is much closer to being a consensus on free trade, but there are an ample number of heterodox views. And in other cases -- like the Rand Paulian view that "More often than not, employers who discriminate in employee hiring will be punished by the market?" -- there is very little in the way of recent academic research at all.
So basically, what you're left with a number of questions in which people respond out of their ideological reference points because the questions are ambiguous, substanceless, or confusing. Klein is blaming the victims, as it were.
There would have been much better ways to construct a study like this one. For instance, questions could have been developed from standardized tests of high school students, like the AP Economics exam, or from surveys of academic economists. Such studies might well support Klein's thesis. But between the poorly-considered questions and the poor choice of survey partner, this amounts to junk science.
... namely, that you are a fool who doesn't bother to fact-check things before posting them on A2K. Either that or you were too stupid to understand the errors with the piece you linked to.
Cycloptichorn
@Cycloptichorn,
Remember the story about
Presidential IQ that suckered in a British newspaper? Like this one, it was very clearly flawed, but played to a certain prejudice in the reading audience. In that one, Clinton was listed with an IQ in the 180's and Bush was listed in the 80's. Both numbers were ridiculous, but if you thought Bush was a dullard and Clinton brilliant, it suckered you right in. Same with the
Strategic Vision "poll" that said Oklahoma students didn't know history. When you see that "liberals" can't get more than three in eight question less than completely wrong versus 6+ for other groups, you know something really fishy is going on.
You dare to question the intelligence, the honesty of Finn of the Abuzz. Finn the philosopher of A2K. Surely there's be some kind of horrendous mistake.
You're right, I don't "fact check" things I read in the WSJ. Nor for that matter do I "fact check" things I read in the NY Times or Washington Post. Maybe I should.
In any case I certainly don't concede, by virtue of your post, that the WSJ article is factually flawed.
If you think it is, take it up with the WSJ.
Perhaps liberals are not as ignorant of basic economics as they so clearly appear to be, but if that's the case, than their economic policies must be insane and not just stupid.
@Finn dAbuzz,
Fact checking isn't all that necessary if you would just think, Finn. Maybe it would be better for you to fact check.
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