# Study says: the more you lean left, the less you know about economics **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 7, 2010, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-the-more-you-lean-left-the-less-you-know-about-economics/538643 "2010-05-07T16:23:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-the-more-you-lean-left-the-less-you-know-about-economics/538643/21 "2010-05-08T15:31:17Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > If I make up a bunch of questions about negative externalities, the Tragedy of the Commons, etc, so that the “enlightened” economics answer runs counter to naive right-wing views, can I publish a study about how the more left you lean, the more you know about economics? All joking aside, you can publish anything you want. There are so many journals now that are so desperate for content, you could easily publish your bullshit survey. From what I can tell, this sociology experiment (not economic) was concerned more with whether or not someone was college educated, how how that education impacted their economic views. Which oddly enough seems to suggest that being college educated tends to make people more left leaning. Looking back through it, I don’t think they meant to show “liberals don’t understand economics.” Nor did they intend those 8 questions to be “facts.” The authors even point out that most “intelligent” participants refused to finish the survey, having recognized mid-stream it was full of shit. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-the-more-you-lean-left-the-less-you-know-about-economics/538643/22 "2010-05-08T15:33:10Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > So to sum up: The group most economically enlightened are Asians, that voted McCain (or Barr), obviously don’t consider themselves latino, live in the suburbs, are atheist, married, fans of NASCAR, not an investor, shops at Wal-mart, and earns less than $50k a year. Hey, I know that guy! Bubba Chang ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-the-more-you-lean-left-the-less-you-know-about-economics/538643/23 "2010-05-08T16:03:47Z")
> [@villa](#): > > I’ll confess to not having read the article, but one of the problems I can see from the start is that “well-established economic principles” aren’t scientific truths. As a left leaner, I think some of the basic principles of the market economics that dominates the subject are incorrect premises. Doesn’t mean I don’t understand economics. Remind me you said that the next time a creationism debate comes up. It’s not a scientific truth! I understand the argument, but I _haughty sigh_ think they are set up on incorrect premises. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-the-more-you-lean-left-the-less-you-know-about-economics/538643/24 "2010-05-08T16:15:00Z")
It’s too simplistic, too biased, and the questions are too broad to tell us anything. What I can generally believe is that most people are ignorant of economics. I would venture to say that there is probably no subject in which people are so firm, strident and confident in really stupid and ignorant opinions. I don’t think it’s limited to any political stripe. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-the-more-you-lean-left-the-less-you-know-about-economics/538643/25 "2010-05-08T16:23:37Z")
Strange how easy it is for BRICKER to accept a study that nests so well into his preconceptions. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-the-more-you-lean-left-the-less-you-know-about-economics/538643/26 "2010-05-08T16:48:05Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > Strange how easy it is for BRICKER to accept a study that nests so well into his preconceptions. So why did he say that he thinks the study is more or less bullshit, then? ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-the-more-you-lean-left-the-less-you-know-about-economics/538643/27 "2010-05-08T16:48:06Z")
Lobohan Says: Bricker posts silly things to shore up his pre-concieved notions, not caring whether it is factual. I can see a lot of liberals being uneducated about economics. However an awful lot of conservatives aren’t just uneducated, they believe things that aren’t true. Like cutting spending during the mother-of-all-recessions is a good idea. That’s insane, yet conservatives cluck it from the rooftops. ---
**Author:** ![heatmiserfl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/df705f/32.png) [@heatmiserfl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heatmiserfl)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-the-more-you-lean-left-the-less-you-know-about-economics/538643/28 "2010-05-08T17:42:39Z")
I love this one from the article: > [@](#): > > “Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable,” > the respondent betrays a lack of economic enlightenment. Challengers might say > something like: “Well, not every restriction on housing development makes housing > less affordable,” **but such a challenger would be tendentious and churlish**. Unless a > statement in a questionnaire explicitly makes it a matter of 100%, by using “every,” > “all,” “always,” “none,” or “never,” it is natural to understand the statement as > a by-and-large statement about overall consequences. Do restrictions on housing > development, by and large, make housing less affordable? Yes they do. Does free > trade lead, overall, to greater unemployment? No, it does not. For someone to say > the contrary is economically unenlightened. So wanting more information in the question instead of absolute statements and not wanting to answer the 8 simple-minded questions with a absolutist “AGREE!” or “DISAGREE!” response makes you tendentious and churlish. Take that you nuanced people, you! Did you also notice the lack of direct citations when these black and white statements are made and the low quality of the references in the back? This can’t be a real journal, can it? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-the-more-you-lean-left-the-less-you-know-about-economics/538643/29 "2010-05-08T18:03:07Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > That is, they have a number of questions that pit leftist ideas against well-established economic principles, and have seen that more leftists fail to grasp the economic principles, and thus conclude that leftists don’t understand basic economics. That’s not what the study shows, or attempted to show. It wasn’t about “basic economics” or “well-established economic principles” like supply and demand or market inelasticity. The questions were set up intentionally to be biased, to show bias. There conclusion was not that “liberals don’t understand basic economics.” There conclusion was that students are graduating from college WITHOUT economics education AND are shown to trend towards “failing” those 8 questions. The point of this study was to highlight the lack of economic education at major universities. With the sub point being that students graduating form college tend to be more liberal. > [@Bricker](#): > > But they fail to also craft questions that pit right-wing ideas against economic principles, so it seems to me that what the study has really proved is simply that leftists are more prone to choose left-wing ideology over basic econ principles No, that’s now what it proves. The questions weren’t meant to be basic econ principles. The questions were meant to be politically oriented. The point being that people that study economics, and have spent time in class discussing those questions, would tend to answer “correctly.” A similar study could just as easily discuss the basic principles of marketing, and draw the same conclusion: students that don’t study marketing tend to answer certain questions “incorrectly.” Or basic English question: True or false, i before e except after c. Someone that studied English would correctly say false, someone with only a cursory knowledge would incorrectly say true. This study would show that students coming out of college aren’t getting taught enough about English. The same study could have just as easily been set up to show that people without college education tend to be conservative and fail to answer liberal-leaning questions. So the conclusion, for those that read the study, is that colleges are failing to teach students about economics. And those students tend to be more liberal. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-the-more-you-lean-left-the-less-you-know-about-economics/538643/30 "2010-05-08T18:09:17Z")
Okay, my previous post was a bit wordy, here is the summary: The study was designed to have 8 economic questions with a conservative bias, to show that students graduating from college had both a liberal bias and an lack of understanding about economics. Not that liberals don’t understand economics. Within the field of economics there are topics that prove conservative beliefs, and topics that prove liberal beliefs. This study shows that liberals fail to understand the concepts that prove conservative beliefs. If the 8 questions had been ones that prove liberal beliefs, these students would have _guessed_ correctly. And a similar study could show that conservatives fail to understand the liberal topics, because there are in fact economic principles that prove liberal beliefs . The difference being that colleges tend to produce liberal leaning individuals, and also fail to teach economics. So what we have here is confirmation bias: \*\*Bricker, \*\*being a conservative, REALLY wanted a study that said “liberals don’t understand economics.” But his lack of economic understanding lead him to the wrong conclusion. Thus, one could wrongly conclude that conservatives don’t understand economics, or crappy journal papers. ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2010, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-the-more-you-lean-left-the-less-you-know-about-economics/538643/31 "2010-05-09T01:28:58Z")
Whoever created the list and the “correct” answers that have been posted in this thread clearly doesn’t understand economics. (Not the person who posted them, the authors of the study?) #1, #2 and #4 can be true or false depending on how you construct your theoretical models. #3, #6, and #7 are completely determined by which economic metrics you choose to look at, and that’s completely a value judgment. #5 is analyzed correctly, because of the phrasing, since a company with the largest market share is not necessarily a monopoly. #8 is analyzed incorrectly. If they had said “Minimum wage laws can raise unemployment,” I probably wouldn’t bother to quibble, but the way they phrased it indicates that minimum wage laws always lead to increased unemployment, which is completely incorrect. Minimum wage laws may have other effects which people may or may not find desirable, but there is no good evidence that minimum wage laws always increase unemployment, and there’s plenty of evidence that at least at historical US rates, there has been no direct correlation between the two. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2010, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-the-more-you-lean-left-the-less-you-know-about-economics/538643/32 "2010-05-09T02:38:49Z")
> [@BrightNShiny](#): > > #8 is analyzed incorrectly. If they had said “Minimum wage laws can raise unemployment,” I probably wouldn’t bother to quibble, but the way they phrased it indicates that minimum wage laws always lead to increased unemployment, which is completely incorrect. Minimum wage laws may have other effects which people may or may not find desirable, but there is no good evidence that minimum wage laws always increase unemployment, and there’s plenty of evidence that at least at historical US rates, there has been no direct correlation between the two. According to the study, you are tendentious and churlish. > [@](#): > > Challengers might say something like: “Well, not every restriction on housing development makes housing less affordable,” but such a challenger would be tendentious and churlish. Unless a statement in a questionnaire explicitly makes it a matter of 100%, by using “every,” “all,” “always,” “none,” or “never,” it is natural to understand the statement as a by-and-large statement about overall consequences. Do restrictions on housing development, by and large, make housing less affordable? Yes they do. Does free trade lead, overall, to greater unemployment? No, it does not. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2010, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-the-more-you-lean-left-the-less-you-know-about-economics/538643/33 "2010-05-09T03:46:46Z")
> [@BrightNShiny](#): > > Whoever created the list and the “correct” answers that have been posted in this thread clearly doesn’t understand economics. (Not the person who posted them, the authors of the study?) > > #1, #2 and #4 can be true or false depending on how you construct your theoretical models. > > #3, #6, and #7 are completely determined by which economic metrics you choose to look at, and that’s completely a value judgment. > > #5 is analyzed correctly, because of the phrasing, since a company with the largest market share is not necessarily a monopoly. > > #8 is analyzed incorrectly. If they had said “Minimum wage laws can raise unemployment,” I probably wouldn’t bother to quibble, but the way they phrased it indicates that minimum wage laws always lead to increased unemployment, which is completely incorrect. Minimum wage laws may have other effects which people may or may not find desirable, but there is no good evidence that minimum wage laws always increase unemployment, and there’s plenty of evidence that at least at historical US rates, there has been no direct correlation between the two. That’s not the point of the study though. Basically, if you’ve been through a couple of university level economics courses, these questions would have been discussed to the point that you’d know how to answer each of them “correctly.” As an example, at some point you’d discuss minimum wage laws and see that if you put it up to $20 an hour a lot of people would lose their jobs and a lot of companies wouldn’t hire–hence higher unemployment. So you’d instinctively know that “minimum wage laws cause unemployment.” And you’d also be smart enough to know moving it from $5 to $5.50 won’t cause the end of the world. This study was designed to highlight the fact that universities don’t require students to take economics courses. If you get to the end of the study you’ll see this. It was not designed to say that liberals don’t understand economics. The authors intentionally picked questions that liberals would answer wrong, because the group they were studying tended to be more left leaning. As I said before, if the questions had been liberal leaning, the same group would have “guessed” right but still failed to understand economics. The conclusion from the study is that kids are graduating from college without learning enough about economics. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2010, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-the-more-you-lean-left-the-less-you-know-about-economics/538643/34 "2010-05-09T04:31:48Z")
Sounds somewhat similar to that tighty-righty golden oldie, about how kids go to college and have their minds warped by homoliberal professors. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2010, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-the-more-you-lean-left-the-less-you-know-about-economics/538643/35 "2010-05-09T12:20:37Z")
Well this is certainly a left-learning board and there are definitely a lot of misinformed opinions about economics here. I don’t know how that compares to a more right leaning population though. Fact of the matter is that a lot of people here are educated but if you didn’t major in business, economics, finance or accounting (as many people haven’t) and if you don’t particularly have an interest in those things, why would you know about them? Furthermore, it seems like a lot of left leaning types base their economics opinions on what they believe is “right” and not necessarily what is good economic practice. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2010, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-the-more-you-lean-left-the-less-you-know-about-economics/538643/36 "2010-05-09T13:21:12Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > According to the study, you are tendentious and churlish. The authors of the study don’t post here, so they are allowed to call their opponents tendentious and churlish. You’re posting here and that’s not allowed in Great Debates, so please don’t do this again. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2010, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-the-more-you-lean-left-the-less-you-know-about-economics/538643/37 "2010-05-09T13:52:13Z")
I think someone forgot to install their humor chip this morning. It was entirely clear to me that friend **Bricker** was indulging in a bit of fun. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2010, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-the-more-you-lean-left-the-less-you-know-about-economics/538643/38 "2010-05-09T14:07:40Z")
> [@](#): > > 1. Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago. > • Unenlightened: Disagree This is deranged. I can see the standards of living decline, just by going through old newspapers. The ads alone… ---
**Author:** ![heatmiserfl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/df705f/32.png) [@heatmiserfl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heatmiserfl)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2010, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-the-more-you-lean-left-the-less-you-know-about-economics/538643/39 "2010-05-09T15:37:23Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > That’s not the point of the study though. Basically, if you’ve been through a couple of university level economics courses, these questions would have been discussed to the point that you’d know how to answer each of them “correctly.” \*\*As an example, at some point you’d discuss minimum wage laws and see that if you put it up to $20 an hour a lot of people would lose their jobs and a lot of companies wouldn’t hire–hence higher unemployment. So you’d instinctively know that “minimum wage laws cause unemployment.” And you’d also be smart enough to know moving it from $5 to $5.50 won’t cause the end of the world. \*\* Actually, I think that’s why people with college degrees were “economically unenlightened”. They turn out to be more “reality enlightened”. They are incapable of answering simplistic questions with simplistic answers because they know the world doesn’t work that way. So, yeah, everyone knows that a huge minimum wage hike would result in unemployment, while a small one would have a statistically negligible effect. Knowing that, how can you answer the question? Seems to me that someone with an economics degree would be similarly tendentious and churlish unless you’re saying that people who take economics become brainwashed into simplistic thinking. Well, anyway, I never took economics so maybe I’m just unenlightened. OTOH, that article looks very unprofessional and that dude has tenure, I suppose. I now wish I majored in economics. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2010, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-the-more-you-lean-left-the-less-you-know-about-economics/538643/40 "2010-05-09T15:40:22Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > This is deranged. > > I can see the standards of living decline, just by going through old newspapers. The ads alone… Standard of living isn’t how happy you are. That’s not a quantitative measure. Standard of living is how much crap you can buy: ie, you could support a family of 4 on one salary if you had one car, one teevee and one bathroom and lived on liver and lima beans. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-the-more-you-lean-left-the-less-you-know-about-economics/538643.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-says-the-more-you-lean-left-the-less-you-know-about-economics/538643.md?page=3)