Y-a-t-il du consensus entre économistes en France ?

Wasmer, Etienne and Mayer, Thierry (2009): Y-a-t-il du consensus entre économistes en France ?

Abstract

This paper provides a summary of the results of a survey on French professional economists on 82 general economic questions, classified in 11 areas : competition policies, trade and globalization, education and human capital, social security and redistribution, tax policy, environment, labor markets, housing markets, international macroeconomics, financial crisis and varia.

This survey is a replication and an extension of a similar survey by Whaples (2006) on 80 economists of the American Economic Association and based on 24 normative questions.

In our survey, we collected 305 answers, among which 146 academics, on 39 positive questions, 35 normative questions and 8 additional questions.

Our findings are that there is a mild degree of consensus, heterogeneously distributed across questions. There is some fair amount of consensus on 25% of the 82 question, and a strong disagreement on 10% of questions. We also find that macroeconomic issues are not less consensual than microeconomic questions. Finally, respondents have a moderate to large aversion to market forces, except for full professors and senior researchers who are on balance equidistant between pro-market and pro-state interventions.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• English Title: Is there a consensus among French economists ?
• Language: French
• Keywords: Economic theory, consensus, debates in economics
• Subjects: A - General Economics and Teaching > A1 - General Economics

References

Whaples Robert (2006), “Do Economists Agree on Anything? Yes!”, Economists’ Voice www.bepress.com/ev November

Whaples, Robert (1996) “Is There Consensus among American Labor Economists: Survey Results on Forty Propositions,” Journal of Labor Research, 17(4):725–34.