Roger Kopple discusses the influence of “big guys” on expert opinion in his 2018 book Expert Failure (pages 214-215, 230). A “big player” is someone who can influence the behavior of individuals just by their presence. Roger gives the example of the IPCC and the US intelligence system, and we seem to be seeing it now in policy as well. Both major presidential candidates are major “buyers” of expert opinion, and their presence alone appears to be sufficient to influence the expert opinion market. Both advocated incredibly unorthodox economic policies (Trump: protectionism, Harris: price controls). And both men have found experts willing to lend credibility to their policies, even though the overwhelming majority of experts are said to be against them.
This leads me to consider important questions regarding “science-based policy.” Although science can be used to influence policy outcomes in potentially beneficial ways (for example, carbon taxes can be used to reduce CO2 emissions and combat global warming); It may also wag its tail. You can advocate for policy or seek scientific legitimacy based on facts. As a result, this can lead to a game of “whack-a-mole” in which a list of (10 contradictory) justifications is created in sequence and discarded as the situation demands. Furthermore, the goalposts are constantly shifting, which is why current policy debates are stalled. In other words, expert opinions are considered useful because they aim to justify preferred policies rather than policies that attempt to solve specific problems.
We saw this when the Harris campaign floated the idea of banning federal price gouging on groceries. This policy is not concrete, and few economists can justify its claims. Price controls in emergencies do not have negative welfare effects, price controls in monopolies can enhance welfare, and price controls in government-owned monopolies can increase welfare effects. Strengthening welfare, good price controls in an inflationary environment, etc. All these justifications may require mutually exclusive assumptions about market conditions. They may not all be correct. This policy requires legitimation, and the “big guys” can make enough proposals to influence expert opinion.
In fact, in extreme cases, its influence may be enough to cause experts to retract their previous arguments. Justin Wolfers, an economist at the University of Michigan, is one such example. In Principles of Microeconomics, by Wolfers and Betsy Stevenson, Wolfers and Stevenson discuss anti-price gouging and its economic impact as a form of price control (2nd ed., p. 146). ). However, in an Aug. 28 interview with CNBC, Wolfers denied that anti-price gouging laws are a form of price control.
The same thing happened with the Trump campaign. Justifications for tariffs range from national security, job protection, fair trade, trade deficit reduction, tariff optimization, revenue maximization, and externalities.
Policy discussions become difficult when the tail wags the dog (when policy promotes legitimation). There is no justification, there is no problem, it is stated to be malleable, so defenders of the policy simply move on from one to the next. The justifier’s scientific expertise lends credibility to these plans.
John Murphy is an assistant professor of economics at Nicholls State University.
