Question 2:Do you agree that the German government should increase public spending given its persistently large current account surplus and given that it is part of the Eurozone?
There is no economic or intellectual case for asymmetric adjustment. Countries with (current account and fiscal) surpluses need to adjust too. It's true fiscal policy alone may hae limited impact but it won't have zero impact and will still help. Moreover the refugee influx, in particular, is a cast-iron case for spending more on "investment" now (especially in language training and labour market integration) given the potentially huge longterm economic and social benefits (and the costs of failing to do so)
No one is arguing that Germany does not produce high quality goods which the rest of the world wants to buy. And there are demographic reasons why some surplus makes sense. But the current level of the surplus imies capital outflows which are simply too high; at some point they will be reversed and the adjustment may well be painful. This is not just an intra-euro zone issue
Question 5: Voters think that the preferences of economists do not align with their own preferences. (This includes the possibility that they thought that the predicted negative economic consequences would not affect them personally).
Do you agree this was an important reason for a majority of UK voters going against the near unanimous advice of the economics profession?
The CFM surveys informs the public about the views held by prominent economists based in Europe on important macroeconomic and public policy questions. Some surveys focus specifically on the UK economy (as the CFM is a UK research centre), but surveys can in principle focus on any macroeconomic question for any region. The surveys shed light on the extent to which there is agreement or disagreement among these experts. An important motivation for the survey is to give a more comprehensive overview of the beliefs held by economists and in particular to include the views of those economists whose opinions are not frequently heard in public debates.
Questions mainly focus on macroeconomic and public policy topics. Although there are some questions that focus specifically on the UK economy, the setup of the survey is much broader and considers questions related to other countries/regions and also considers questions not tied to a specific economy.
The surveys are done in collaboration with the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).
German current account surpluses
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Question 2: Do you agree that the German government should increase public spending given its persistently large current account surplus and given that it is part of the Eurozone?
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Question 1: Do you agree that German current account surpluses are a threat to the Eurozone economy?
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Are academic economists ‘in touch’ with voters and politicians?
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Question 7: Voters did not know that there was near-unanimity among economists.
Do you agree that this was an important reason for a majority of UK voters going against the near unanimous advice of the economics profession?
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Question 6: Economists did not explain the reasons for this consensus in sufficiently clear language.
Do you agree this was an important reason for a majority of UK voters going against the near unanimous advice of the economics profession?
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Question 5: Voters think that the preferences of economists do not align with their own preferences. (This includes the possibility that they thought that the predicted negative economic consequences would not affect them personally).
Do you agree this was an important reason for a majority of UK voters going against the near unanimous advice of the economics profession?
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