Thread by @arram

Reading a great summary of survey on economic literacy.

"If you compare otherwise identical individuals with very different income levels, their average degree of economic literacy is about the same."

1/n highlights from a great essay by @bryan_caplan

mercatus.org/uploadedFiles/…

"The survey also shows that on balance conservative Republicans are no more economically literate than liberal Democrats. [...] The typical economist is a moderate Democrat, not a staunchly conservative Republican."

"Overall, conservatives seem to have weaker make-work and anti-market biases. But liberals' anti-foreign bias is less serious than conservatives'."

(Make-work bias is assuming all job loss is bad, even when it means higher productivity from technological improvements.)

Economic illiteracy differences between political alignments are relative:

"while conservatives are *more* willing to attribute price changes to supply-and-demand, most conservatives still balk. Liberals are less worried about immigration, but most are worried nonetheless."

Higher income doesn't predict economic literacy, but higher education does:

"The more educated otherwise similar individuals are, the more inclined they are to agree with the economic beliefs of professional economists"

"One important task is to reverse the popular perception that economists habitually disagree. In reality, it is quite amazing how much economists agree with one another."

I'm guilty of this. Disagreement is naturally overrepresented in conversation.