Differences between the general public"s "positive" economic views and economists" resemble other judgemental anomalies: Laypeople and experts "systematically" disagree. I analyse this puzzle using data from the Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy. The paper first tests and...

The paper presents a model of "rational irrationality," to explain why political and religious beliefs are marked not only by low information (as the notion of rational ignorance highlights), but also by systematic bias and high certainty. Being irrational--i.e. deviating from rational...

The political economy of Ludwig von Mises and Frederic Bastiat has been largely ignored even by their admirers. We argue that Mises' and Bastiat's views in this area were both original and insightful. While traditional public choice generally maintains that democracy fails because voters' views...

This paper develops a formal theory that combines power-maximizing “Leviathan” political parties with well-defined imperfections in the political process. The model implies that both parties tend to make government larger as their likelihood of electoral victory increases. Empirical tests on...

Critics of behavioral economics often argue that apparent irrationality arises mainly because test subjects lack adequate incentives; the defenders of behavioral economics typically reply that their findings are robust to this criticism. The current paper presents a simple theoretical model of...

The positive economic beliefs of economists and the general public systematically differ. What factors make noneconomists think more like economists? Using the "Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy," this paper shows people think more like economists (1) if they are well educated,...

Self-designated Austrian economists have two different views of modern neoclassical economics. Some, such as F. A. Hayek, take issue with certain aspects of neoclassical economics without disputing its fundamentals. Others, most notably Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard, explicitly reject the...

As teachers, economists usually assume that their students have systematically biased beliefs about economics; yet, as researchers, economists usually assume that voters understand how the economy works. Teachers have it right, according to Bryan Caplan, and so modern political economy needs a...