Who Said or What Said?: Estimating Ideological Bias in Views Among Economists

Click here to view record
Main author: Javdani, Mohsen
Other authors: Chang, Ha-Joon
Format: Journal Article           
Online access: Click here to view record


id eprints-38930
recordtype eprints
institution SOAS, University of London
collection SOAS Research Online
language English
language_search English
description There exists a long-standing debate about the influence of ideology in economics. Surprisingly, however, there are very few studies that provide systematic empirical evidence on this critical issue. Using an online randomised controlled experiment involving 2,425 economists in 19 countries, we examine the effect of ideological bias among economists. Participants were asked to evaluate statements from prominent economists on different topics, while source attribution for each statement was randomised without participants’ knowledge. For each statement, participants either received a mainstream source, an ideologically different less-/non-mainstream source, or no source. We find that changing source attributions from mainstream to less-/non-mainstream, or removing them, significantly reduces economists’ reported agreement with statements. This contradicts the image economists have/report of themselves, with 82% of participants reporting that in evaluating a statement one should only pay attention to its content. Our analysis provides clear evidence for the existence of ideological bias as well as of authority bias among economists. We also find significant heterogeneity in our results by gender, country, PhD completion country, research area and undergraduate major, with patterns consistent with the existence of ideological bias.
format Journal Article
author Javdani, Mohsen
author_facet Javdani, Mohsen
Chang, Ha-Joon
authorStr Javdani, Mohsen
author_letter Javdani, Mohsen
author2 Chang, Ha-Joon
author2Str Chang, Ha-Joon
title Who Said or What Said?: Estimating Ideological Bias in Views Among Economists
publisher Oxford University Press
publishDate 2023
url https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/38930/

Similar items