08/05/2010

The "Economic Enlightenment" Survey Everybody's Talking about: Drill, Baby, Drill!

It's by Zeljka Buturovic and Daniel B. Klein and it's here (link to full-text pdf on the right hand side of the page). Even if you're not particularly interested in the topic, the article is worth a look for general shoddiness. I particularly liked this bit (p.189):
We advise students and parents to beware of economics-principles courses that either stress blackboard models divorced from judging important policy positions, or that are hostile to classical liberal thinking and values. Students and parents should understand that while academic economists are, relative to other faculty, more attuned to economic enlightened, a substantial majority vote Democratic and maintain an ideological character in line with that of most of the humanities and social-science faculty. In selecting schools and courses, students and parents need to drill down to the individual professor, and investigate his or her webpage and course syllabi.
I'll outsource the more substantial comments about the quality of the survey instrument to NathanM at Volokh, who is clearly more economically enlightened than the study authors.

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