The Adams survey of economists

Scott Adams of Dilbert fame has been very smart and funded a survey of professional economists to see which candidate for President of the United States has the most support from economic experts. Adams writes on his blog.

Voters say the economy is the most important issue to them. Foreign affairs will keep dropping down the list of importance now that the current administration supports a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. So how does a voter decide which candidate would be best for the economy?

Yesterday Reuters/Zogby announced a poll that showed, among other things, which candidate the voters think would manage the economy better. This is like asking people who have hemorrhoids the best way to treat a brain tumor. Shouldn't we be asking brain surgeons?

Forgive me for not caring what your grandma thinks of NAFTA. I want to know which economic policies seem best according to the majority of economists. I got tired of waiting for someone else to give me some useful information and decided to go get it myself. Democracy without useful information is random. This isn't a good time in history to be making random decisions.

Bryan Caplan notes at EconLog

If you know anything about the econ profession, it's clear that Obama will crush McCain. After all, the typical economist is a moderate Democrat; he just happens to be a moderate Democrat who thinks that downsizing has important long-run economic benefits.

The real contribution of an Adams-like survey is the information it provides about economists' specific policy views. NAFTA, for example, enjoys economists' bipartisan support. If the public merely deferred to policies enjoying such support, we'd live in a very different and vastly better world.

It will be interesting to see how this survey of economists turns out.