This week's The Economist has surveyed leading economists on the economic plans and economic competency of both John McCain and Barack Obama. Questions asked included:
- How do you rate the economic plans of [the candidates]?
- Which candidate would pick the better economic team?
- For whom would you rather work?
- Which candidate has the better grasp of economics?
The results are startling.
The survey included top American academic economists with a total 142 responding. The results are contained in this week's The Economist.
The startling results:
1. How do you rate the economic plans of [the candidates]?
(scale of 1-5)
John McCain: 2.2
Barack Obama: 3.3
Where the candidates’ positions are more clearly articulated, Mr Obama scores better on nearly every issue: promoting fiscal discipline, energy policy, reducing the number of people without health insurance, controlling health-care costs, reforming financial regulation and boosting long-run economic growth. Twice as many economists think Mr McCain’s plan would be bad or very bad for long-run growth as Mr Obama’s. Given how much focus Mr McCain has put on his plan’s benefits for growth, this last is quite a repudiation.
2. Which candidate would pick the better economic team?
John McCain: 13.6%
Barack Obama: 80.7%
A candidate’s economic expertise may matter rather less if he surrounds himself with clever advisers. Unfortunately for Mr McCain, 81% of all respondents reckon Mr Obama is more likely to do that; among unaffiliated respondents, 71% say so. That is despite praise across party lines for the excellent Doug Holtz-Eakin, Mr McCain’s most prominent economic adviser and a former head of the Congressional Budget Office. "Although I have tended to vote Republican," one reply says, "the Democrats have a deep pool of talented, moderate economists."
3. For whom would you rather work?
John McCain: 10.9%
Barack Obama: 71.5%
"John McCain has professed disdain for ‘so-called economists’, and for some the feeling has become mutual," says Erik Brynjolfsson, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management. "Obama’s team is mainstream and non-ideological but extremely talented."
And my favorite response - By a 10:1 margin!
4. Which candidate has the better grasp of economics?
John McCain: 7.8%
Barack Obama: 80.1%
The detailed responses are bad news for Mr McCain (the full data are available here). Eighty per cent of respondents and no fewer than 71% of those who do not cleave to either main party say Mr Obama has a better grasp of economics. Even among Republicans Mr Obama has the edge: 46% versus 23% say Mr Obama has the better grasp of the subject. "I take McCain’s word on this one," comments James Harrigan at the University of Virginia, a reference to Mr McCain’s infamous confession that he does not know as much about economics as he should. In fairness, Mr McCain’s lower grade may in part reflect greater candour about his weaknesses. Mr Obama’s more tightly managed image leaves fewer opportunities for such unvarnished introspection.
We heed to get the word out. With the economy issue #1, the experts pick Barack Obama by ten to one!