Kauffman Economic Outlook: A Quarterly Survey of Leading Economics Bloggers – First Quarter 2012

Abstract

This paper reports the results of a survey of top economics bloggers. The survey was conducted in mid-January 2012 by soliciting input from top economics bloggers as ranked by Palgrave’s Econolog.net. While many (around 50 percent) of the respondents have participated in all quarterly surveys, the results across quarters are not directly comparable.The Kauffman Foundation is dedicated to the idea that entrepreneurship and innovation drive economic growth. Naturally, this technology of blogging is a fascinating one, both for its effect on the economic research frontier, but also as an innovation in its own right. A survey of so many high-profile participants offers a unique opportunity for discussion, and this survey should be viewed as one way of summarizing some of the insights of the community of economics bloggers.Key Findings: The Economy: Economics bloggers have a negative but slightly improving outlook on the U.S. economy for the first quarter of 2012, with 14 percent who believe overall conditions are “strong and growing” and “strong with uncertain growth.” A total of 86 percent still believe the economy is “mixed” or “facing recession.” For an economy in which growth is the norm, 32 percent of respondents think the U.S. economy is worse than official statistics indicate, and only 9 percent believe it is better. When asked to describe the economy using five adjectives, “uncertain” remains the most frequently used term.Policy Recommendations: Although the panel is largely non-partisan, it remains that an almost two-thirds majority of top economics bloggers believes the government is too involved in the economy. The top policy recommendation (selected from a small set of choices) is for the government to “support the approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline” with 77 percent support.More than 70 percent of the participants again support approval of the idea to open up more domestic areas to oil and gas exploration and drilling, and opinion is split evenly on whether the top marginal income tax should be raised.Survey Results: The Kauffman Economic Outlook includes core questions that will recur each quarter and one-time-only topical questions. Core questions focus on two areas, and are presented in the charts and tables below: the performance of the U.S. economy and policy assessments and recommendations. Finally, there are topical questions provided by economics bloggers themselves, which are not categorized.