Schools of Thought and Economists’ Opinions on Economic Policy

In this paper we bring to data the hypothesis that differences in economists’ opinions on economic policy are related to differences in the school of thought (SofT) they belong to. Our analysis is based on a unique data set of survey responses from a representative sample of Italian economists. Two are the main results: First, differences in the SofT predict differences in economists’ opinions on economic issues, even controlling for individual, group, and community characteristics, spatial and knowledge heterogeneity, and political orientation. Second, dichotomous categorizations such as Mainstream vs Non-Mainstream or Orthodox vs Heterodox have poor explicative power as for economists’ disagreement on economic issues.