I think the IGM panel is great, and expanding it within economics or extending it to other fields would be great. Some quick thoughts:
It’s impossible to objectively retrospectively evaluate panel responses, because all of the interesting questions are about causal effects of X on Y, where the answer doesn’t become clear over time because the counterfactual is never observed. Maybe the best you could do is run a retrospective survey where you ask panel members (or other economists) whether they think the panel responses were right in hindsight.
I’m not surprised that Tyler Cowen has a negative view of many of the panel results; he’s a libertarian and the panel is broadly left-leaning, as is the broader economics profession. I think a better critique is one that Cowen expresses, e.g., in his interview on Spencer Greenberg’s podcast: that the views of economists seem to covary pretty closely with the political beliefs of their demographic group (highly educated urban dwellers), suggesting that their views aren’t purely reflective of professional expertise.
I also don’t think it’s concerning that the IGM forum “excludes certain schools of economics, like the Austrian school.” The economics profession doesn’t really have “schools” anymore, and I don’t think the “Austrian school” has ever had much mainstream credibility. The first and third bullet points from the 2016 paper are more concerning.
I don’t think the IGM panel influences future research topics, as the questions are typically about topics already highly salient to academic economists. I don’t know whether it influences public discourse or policymakers. The panel has high buy-in from academics because its members are all highly regarded in the profession.
Regarding the impossibility of resolving questions about causal effects: Take the example I gave in the screenshot. I would think that there are plausible observations in the coming years that make the causal claim “monopolists using their market power → inflation” very unlikely, right? E.g. if the inflation decreases without observing changes in competitiveness or something like this. And yes, a retrospective survey might be the gold standard, though I suppose I’d feel somewhat comfortable trusting a careful economist to make a bunch of judgements by herself.
And regarding buy-in, do you have an idea how the members themselves initially got interested in participating? I guess if you want to replicate the IGM panel, you’d need to have some well connected people on board fairly early. Maybe due to econs proximity to politics it’s also very natural for them to want to speak out about policy issues.
I’m skeptical that there’ll be a consensus 5 or 10 years from now on whether market power was a key contributor to 2021 inflation; there are just too many confounding factors blocking an inference like “inflation decreased without changes in competitiveness, so market power must not have been causing inflation.” It’s true that retrospective consensus sometimes emerges (for example, that financial deregulation was at least partly responsible for the Global Financial Crisis), but this is pretty rare.
I’m not sure how the forum started. I assume a key factor in making the participants interested was that the panel was started by a reputable institution (Chicago Booth) that could guarantee a wide audience. I wouldn’t guess that economists are more willing than academics from other fields to express views on policy-relevant issues; I suspect political scientists, sociologists, etc. would be similarly willing.
I think the IGM panel is great, and expanding it within economics or extending it to other fields would be great. Some quick thoughts:
It’s impossible to objectively retrospectively evaluate panel responses, because all of the interesting questions are about causal effects of X on Y, where the answer doesn’t become clear over time because the counterfactual is never observed. Maybe the best you could do is run a retrospective survey where you ask panel members (or other economists) whether they think the panel responses were right in hindsight.
I’m not surprised that Tyler Cowen has a negative view of many of the panel results; he’s a libertarian and the panel is broadly left-leaning, as is the broader economics profession. I think a better critique is one that Cowen expresses, e.g., in his interview on Spencer Greenberg’s podcast: that the views of economists seem to covary pretty closely with the political beliefs of their demographic group (highly educated urban dwellers), suggesting that their views aren’t purely reflective of professional expertise.
I also don’t think it’s concerning that the IGM forum “excludes certain schools of economics, like the Austrian school.” The economics profession doesn’t really have “schools” anymore, and I don’t think the “Austrian school” has ever had much mainstream credibility. The first and third bullet points from the 2016 paper are more concerning.
I don’t think the IGM panel influences future research topics, as the questions are typically about topics already highly salient to academic economists. I don’t know whether it influences public discourse or policymakers. The panel has high buy-in from academics because its members are all highly regarded in the profession.
Thanks, that all is useful feedback.
Regarding the impossibility of resolving questions about causal effects: Take the example I gave in the screenshot. I would think that there are plausible observations in the coming years that make the causal claim “monopolists using their market power → inflation” very unlikely, right? E.g. if the inflation decreases without observing changes in competitiveness or something like this. And yes, a retrospective survey might be the gold standard, though I suppose I’d feel somewhat comfortable trusting a careful economist to make a bunch of judgements by herself.
And regarding buy-in, do you have an idea how the members themselves initially got interested in participating? I guess if you want to replicate the IGM panel, you’d need to have some well connected people on board fairly early. Maybe due to econs proximity to politics it’s also very natural for them to want to speak out about policy issues.
I’m skeptical that there’ll be a consensus 5 or 10 years from now on whether market power was a key contributor to 2021 inflation; there are just too many confounding factors blocking an inference like “inflation decreased without changes in competitiveness, so market power must not have been causing inflation.” It’s true that retrospective consensus sometimes emerges (for example, that financial deregulation was at least partly responsible for the Global Financial Crisis), but this is pretty rare.
I’m not sure how the forum started. I assume a key factor in making the participants interested was that the panel was started by a reputable institution (Chicago Booth) that could guarantee a wide audience. I wouldn’t guess that economists are more willing than academics from other fields to express views on policy-relevant issues; I suspect political scientists, sociologists, etc. would be similarly willing.
Thanks, that makes sense!