A
Wall Street Journal opinion piece claims according to research that progressives "flunk" economic questions more often than conservatives. The
implication is that conservatives are economically smarter.
First off, economics is still more art than science. The original models based on Adam Smith's ideas have proven too simplistic, and the hard parts; especially with regard to risk, bubbles, instability, and pollution; have yet to be solved.
Failure of most economists to predict the mortgage meltdown is manifestation of this knowledge gap. If their models were near perfect, they would have known about it. (A few got lucky, and did predict it, but cannot turn it into a reliable math model.)
Take the article's primary example question: "Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable." Using a cartoon version of the Adam Smith model, the answer is generally "yes", which is how the WSJ article scores it. However, in actual practice there are often complex and unforeseen forces that simplistic models just plain miss. Conservatives tend to prefer simple sloganistic metaphors to model life, religion, and economics. Progressives on the other hand tend to view life as more complicated and intertwined, and are naturally skeptical of simplistic slogans and solutions.
Back to the example, if you build more houses, then maybe people will just have more babies and fill them up anyhow. A biology expert may be more likely to apply population systems knowledge into such questions than somebody without such a background. If you give a tray of bacteria more food, initially each cell will have more to eat. But after a while they will multiply and the scarcity will return. Food would
not continue to be "more affordable" (easier to obtain).
Some big cities found out that when they built more freeways, rather than reduce traffic congestion, they eventually just filled right back up and were just as jammed as before. People started choosing jobs and homes that took "advantage" of the new freeways and thus re-flooded them back to prior levels.
Second, what if the housing restrictions were on upper-crust housing? If there were limits on the building of expensive houses, then perhaps houses more affordable to the lower and middle class would be available, at least in that area. The question didn't say what kind of restriction was applied.
In summary, many of WSJ's
questions don't have simple yes or no answers in practice. They are more points of discussion than questions. Society is not simple and anybody who sells simple answers, such as Murdoch's various "works", is usually full of it. (Some of the other quiz questions are addressed in my "Trade Myths" article.)
