Every year, I get my ECONS102 class to complete the Political Compass test as an extra credit task. Having done this for 16 years, I have noticed some general trends. First, the mean (and median) result for each class is always to the economic left and social libertarian. I put this down to the centering of the test being relevant for a general US population, which would likely be to the right of a general New Zealand population. Second, there is a strong positive correlation between the economic left-right axis and the social libertarian-authoritarian axis. Those on the economic left are more likely to be social libertarian (as is the mean and median for my class).
While this exercise is interesting and provides some descriptive evidence on the political attitudes of my economics class, it doesn't really answer a broader question: do political attitudes vary systematically between different fields of study? I can certainly identify some of my past students who were outliers in the test, and link them with their majors, but those anecdotes don't really hold much value.
Fortunately, this 2019 article by Mira Fischer (University of Cologne) and co-authors, published in the European Journal of Political Economy (ungated earlier version here), offers more definitive descriptive evidence. They make use of a large dataset collected over a long period of time:
We use data from a student survey administered by the Research Group on Higher Education which is supported by Germany's Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Beginning in the winter semester of 1982/83, data on about 8000 university students have been collected every two or three years...
The questions inquiring about the students' political attitudes were first included in the second wave and have been asked ever since. The dataset contains 100,420 observations collected in twelve waves and comprises 1032 variables, most of which were included in several waves...
The questionnaire distinguishes eight fields of study: humanities, social sciences, law, economics, medicine, engineering, natural sciences, and other subjects... About 15% of the students studied humanities, 9% social sciences, 7% law, 15% economics, 9% medicine, 22% engineering, 18% natural sciences, and 4% other subjects. The term “economics” is an abbreviation of “economic sciences” which includes both economics and business students who, in Germany, study the same courses in their basic studies.
Fischer et al. first look at the descriptive evidence of the relationship between field of study and political attitudes. Here they find that:
The coefficients of the LAW, ECONOMICS and MEDICINE variables have a positive sign and are statistically significant at the 1% level... This means that the incoming law, economics, and medical students are more prone to espouse liberal-democratic policy positions than the engineering students (reference category). The coefficients of the HUMANITIES and SOCIAL SCIENCES variables have a negative sign and are... statistically significant at the 1% level (Social sciences) and at the 10% level (Humanities). Not surprisingly, incoming humanities and social science students are less prone to espouse liberal-democratic policy positions than engineering students.
Interestingly, there are no differences between male and female students in terms of the relationship between field of study and political attitudes. Then, extending their analysis to look at the particular attitude towards free markets, Fischer et al. find that:
First, incoming economics students are not only more likely to support liberal-democratic policies than the reference engineering students; they also are more likely to favor free markets. Second, incoming law and medicine students support the liberal-democratic position mainly because of the socio-political dimension of classical liberalism. With respect to their evaluation of economic liberalism, these students are not different from engineering students. Third, students who begin to study humanities, social sciences, natural science, or one of the “other” fields are significantly more adamant in rejecting economic liberalism than incoming engineering students.
Turning to specific political attitudes, Fischer et al. find that:
...students who just begin to study law, economics, and medicine are significantly more in favor of Christian-conservative policies than our benchmark group, the engineering students... As compared to the engineering students, the incoming humanities, social science, natural science, and “other” students are all much less enthusiastic about Christian-conservative policies... The green political attitudes are an almost perfect mirror image of the liberal-democratic and Christian-conservative positions. But only the social science and economics students have clear left-right preferences. The other students do not measure the two left ideologies with the same yardstick.
Finally, Fischer et al. look at whether the differences are the result of selection (students with particular attitudes are more likely to choose particular fields of study) or socialisation (the field of study affects political attitudes). To do this, they look at how political attitudes change during students' studies. Here, things get really interesting:
In contrast to the political persistence of the medical and law students, and the rather slight polarization of the engineering, humanities, natural science, and social science students, the economics students' political attitudes do appear to change more dramatically during the course of their studies: the further economics students progress in their studies, the more they appear to favor liberal-democratic and Christian-conservative policies. Economics students also become more favorably disposed towards green policies which are advocated in Germany by the left-wing party Alliance '90/The Greens. By contrast, economics students appear to turn away from social-democratic policy positions as they become more proficient in their chosen field of study.
That seems like a somewhat odd mix, with economic students increasingly favouring market-liberal and Christian-conservative positions and more favourable views on Green policies, and away from social-democratic positions. In the German context, that means viewing the FDP or CDU and Greens parties more favourably, and the SPD less favourably. In terms of the Political Compass, that suggests a shift towards the economic right, and down towards social libertarianism. All the more surprising given the strong positive correlation between the two axes on the Political Compass I noted earlier. What others might find surprising is that:
... the economics curriculum does not make economics students adopt more right-wing policy views...
Given the changes in political attitudes that economics students experience, Fischer et al. note the importance of socialisation, as well as selection. Fischer et al. conclude that:
Economics students are thus quite special in terms of their political attitudes because of self-selection and socialization effects. Our preferred interpretation of the socialization result is not that economics students are brainwashed or indoctrinated by their instructors. The available empirical evidence rather suggests that economics students acquire analytical tools that make them see the world in a different light. We thus agree with George Stigler who firmly believed that the cause of the economists' political “conservatism” derives from their training: “It simply becomes impossible for the trained economist to believe certain absurd arguments which are, however, often used in the political discourse with resounding success”...
I would buy into that interpretation.
Read more:
- Does education in economics make politicians corrupt?
- The impact of business and economics education on moral competence
- This study tells us nothing about whether studying economics make students less ethical
- Does studying economics make you selfish?
- Do economists act like the self-interested decision-makers from our models, and if so, why?
No comments:
Post a Comment