Assessing Expert Trustworthiness: Motivations, Accountability, and Institutional Safeguards in Economic Policy

The podcast explores the complex question of trusting experts, particularly in policy and economics, arguing that experts, like other individuals, are driven by a "messy mixture" of self-interest and public interest, not solely neutral scientific objectives. This perspective, an extension of Public Choice economics, suggests that experts' motivations (including fame and prestige) can lead to outcomes not aligned with the public's best interests, even without illegal actions. Historical examples like Eugenics and Soviet economic planning are cited to illustrate catastrophic consequences of unchecked expert authority.

The discussion distinguishes between necessary technical expertise (e.g., building airplanes) and policy expertise, where motivations become critical. It introduces "analytical egalitarianism," the idea that people are equally equipped to make political and economic choices, implying observed outcome differences stem from historical factors, education, and opportunities, not innate differences. The speaker emphasizes that the issue isn't necessarily dishonesty or law-breaking by experts, but rather selective reporting, adherence to pre-set goals, or a failure to fully disclose uncertainty, often driven by a desire for self-worth or prestige.

To mitigate these problems, several mechanisms are suggested: fostering competition among diverse expert viewpoints ("looking through different windows"), enforcing transparency in data selection, collection, and modeling (including reporting unused models), and implementing codes of ethics to raise awareness of potential misaligned motivations. The jury system is presented as an institutional model for expertise, featuring opposing viewpoints, transparency, and random selection, which could be applied to other decision-making contexts.

The episode connects these ideas to 19th-century political economy, particularly the works of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill. Mill's harm principle is highlighted as a framework for nuanced thinking about restricting liberty and balancing known harms of constraint against potential harms of unconstrained action (e.g., mask mandates). The broader implication is that while expertise is essential, societies must design institutions and foster awareness to ensure that expert advice genuinely serves the public good, acknowledging human nature and its inherent self-interested dimensions.

"policy that experts who advise governments who put policy into effect are as Buchanan might say no less no nor more no less no nor no more self-interested than the rest of us"

"their motivations are a mixture a messy mixture of self and public interests"

"historical examples where experts actually put their own interests ahead of those they were looking supposedly looking after and so we look at Eugenics for instance or the Soviet economic growth on literature"

"cases where ex experts receive a directive to you know put a policy into place and then they go ahead and start doing that without any additional checks to see whether this is in fact what the people who are being ruled would agree to so without consent"

"situations in which experts May May selectively report data for instance not necessarily an illegal thing to do but they haven't made the full data array available or they haven't said that here are some additional models that we tested"

"Adam Smith says you know everybody is motivated by things by goods and so on but also by fame fame and fortune and fame is something that we as economists don't really spend a lot of time talking about"

"we economists and he included himself in this obviously I have an ethical obligation to look at the world through different Windows use the the metaphor of Windows"

"Mill's work on the harm principle really gives us a blueprint for how to think about this notion of of public good"

"if we constrain people from from acting a certain way from having particular choices open to them or not that that too imposes a harm on individuals because people need a rich array of choices in order to flourish"

"the jury system is extremely interesting in our view and and one that yes has has implications for I I think for the broader notion of expertise and and experts"