It is widely acknowledged that lay and expert perspectives on the economy widely diverge. In this context, teachers and journalists play a major role because they act as promoters for economic knowledge transfer through schools and media. This study analyzes how teachers and journalists judge...

A series of four experiments were performed to examine the accuracy of estimations of economic growth by both experts and lay people, the factors that influence the accuracy of their estimations, and which procedures they use to make estimations. The results show that for actual growth rates...

This paper examines a potential confirmation bias in price perception in consequence to a real-world event and different explanations for such a confirmation bias. In a panel design conducted 2 months before and after a raise in value-added tax (VAT), 303 participants had to estimate the...

The recent financial crisis has affected most countries. With cutbacks in business, trade and government spending, millions world-wide have lost their jobs, with young people disproportionately affected. This paper synthesizes the thoughts expressed during an interdisciplinary discussion held in...

We conjecture that lay people extrapolate past inflation, evaluate product prices relative to recalled reference prices, and perceive income increases as opportunities to increase consumption. From these conjectures we derive the hypothesis that past inflation makes products or expenditures...

Abstract The present article investigates how economic experts and laypersons deal with issues of fairness in the economic area. Most economic experts follow an ethic that can be described as both, deductive and utilitarian. The ethical judgment of an economic system as a whole or a specific...