Public Choice & the Expert: The Endogenous Past

Abstract:     
This paper extends a public choice model to encompass the economist. In particular, we apply the lesson from our study of past economic controversy concerning human equality (Peart-Levy 2005), to issues of public choice. The lesson is that it is incorrect to assume that the motivation of experts is markedly different from that of ordinary people. Here, we examine forecasts of comparative growth rates for the Soviet Union and the United States in economics textbooks. We examine forecasts that occurred before the widespread development of public choice models of central planning. Consequently, the forecasts were guided only by various sorts of public interest models of planning. We consider and compare how the forecasts were revised in the light of new evidence, and come to some preliminary conclusions regarding the economists' unwillingness to abandon a model in the face of falsifying evidence.

Keywords: motivation of economists, central planning forecasting, public choice, falsifying evidence

JEL Classifications: A10, B14

Working Paper Series