Schools of Thought and

Economists’ Opinions on Economic Policy

Luca De Benedictis∗ Michele Di Maio†

University of Macerata University of Naples “Parthenope”

Abstract

In this paper we bring to data the hypothesis that economists’ opinions are related
to the schools of thought they declare to belong to. Two are the main results of our
analysis, based on a novel dataset on Italian economists’ opinions. The first one is that,
on average, differences in the School of Thought predict differences in economists’ opinions
on a large set of normative questions on economic policy, even controlling for individual
and other group or community characteristics, spatial and knowledge heterogeneity, and
political orientation. Second, the way of grouping together different schools of thought is
crucial as far as their usefulness to predict economist’ opinions: Dichotomous groups (e.g.
Mainstream vs Non-Mainstream, Orthodox vs Heterodox) have poorer explicative power
than more articulated groups that preserve the differences between schools of thought.

Keywords: School of thought, Economists’ disagreement, Group identity, Economic policy, Italy
JEL Classification: A11, A13, C42

∗
DIEF - University of Macerata, Via Crescimbeni 20, Macerata 62100, Italy. Ph: 0039.07332583235; Fax:
0039.07332583205. debene@unimc.it
†
DSE, University of Naples “Parthenope”, Via Medina 40, 80133, Naples, Italy.
michele.dimaio@uniparthenope.it. We would like to thank Frederic Lee, Cristina Marcuzzo and Thomas
Mayer for helpful comments and suggestions on a previous version of this paper. We would also thank
all Italian Economists that participated to our survey and that answered to our follow-up questions.
All the supplementary material on the Survey of Italian Economists can be found at the web page
http://sites.google.com/site/micdimaio/surveyofItalianeconomists. All errors and omissions are
entirely our own.

1
1 Introduction

The proclivity of human beings to gather together in communities is a key feature of human
social behavior, as well as a fundamental component of human cognitive system. We, as
humans, tend to cluster in groups, and in doing so we tend to separate our own community
from other communities.1 The same procedure of grouping and separating that we apply to
our social organization we also apply to learning, to the way we evaluate things, and to the
explanation of individual behavior.
In this paper we analyze the role of communities in a special group of people involved in
intellectual production: Economists. In particular, we evaluate whether the difference in the
School of Thought (SofT, hereafter) relates to the difference in their opinions about normative
issues on economy policy. This empirical evidence comes from a representative sample of
academic Italian economists answering to a large set of questions concerning their views on
the functioning of the economy and about economic policies to be implemented to improve
Italian economic conditions. The main result of the analysis is that differences in the SofT
predict differences in economists’ opinions. The result is robust to the inclusion of several
individual and community or group characteristics: Controlling for confounders, such as
spatial and knowledge heterogeneity and political orientation, for potential group alternatives,
such as geographical common origin, common intellectual environment as undergraduates,
and common University department as scholars, SofT remains significantly correlated with
the difference in economists’ individual opinions on economic policy.
This should not come as a surprise. For hundreds years economists belonging to different
SofT argued about theory and policy (Gide and Rist, 1909; Hutchinson, 1953; Blaug, 1980),
giving rise to new ideas and intellectual communities (Dow, 2007).2 All this is well reported,
discussed, and classified by historians of economic thought. To exemplify, let’s take the
volume by our Italian colleagues Screpanti and Zamagni (2005) as a test-bed. In their Outline
1
See Akerlof and Kranton (2000) on the formation of identity and economics and Bisin and Verdier (2011)
on group evolution, socialization and cultural transmission. The distinction between ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ has
been derived by Eaton, Eswaran and Oxoby (2011) as an efficient strategy in an evolutionary game, where
groups of people exploit a common access resource, as in primitive hunter-gatherer teams in the savannas of
east Africa tens thousands years ago; group identity may improve market transactions in Prisoners’ Dilemma
like situations (Bowles and Gintis, 2004) as a result of parochial altruism.
2
Economists have disagreed about almost everything. For a long time they also have argued about what
economics was about and still today economists are far from unanimous about the definition of their research
object (Backhouse and Madema, 2009).

2
of the History of Economic Thought the word debate appears seventy-five times, one every
seven pages, while the stronger term controversy appears eighteen times, one every thirty
pages, being the benchmark-term economics in one out of two pages. Of course, debate is
not uniformly distributed along pages and time, but tends to catalyze in specific moments.
Famous examples are the Methodenstreit between the German Historical School and the
Austrian School at the end of the 19th Century (Anderson et al., 2002; Roncaglia, 2005)
or the Capital Controversy between the two Cambridge at the end of the 1960s (Harcourt,
1972), and the most recent debates on rational expectations (Pesaran, 1987) or the behavior
of individual economic agents (Kahnneman and Tversky, 1979). The procedure of grouping
and separating in the economists’ intellectual production reaches to our days with the debates
on the use of randomized trials in policy evaluation and of laboratory experiments in guiding
utility theory being two examples.
Despite the ease of representing debates as the confrontation of polar positions,3 rarely
the competition between SofT ends in a complete prevalence of one school over the other(s).
In fact, in the majority of cases reported by historians of economic thought, economic debates
reached their climax with the prevalence of a mainstream coexisting with alternative views.
Pluralism seems to be the norm rather than the exception. Many authors have argued that
this is a blessing and that theoretical pluralism should be considered as a value per sé and
that it should be guaranteed and preserved (Maki, 1997). In fact, there are good reasons
to think that pluralism fosters innovative ideas and that critical thinking acts as a system
of “checks and balances” over economic mainstream, on its internal logic, methodological
soundness and ability to cope with real economic problems.4
3
To give an idea of the popular representation of a debate among economists, the resurgence of
the Keynes vs von Hayek confrontation on the role of government intervention to boost effective de-
mand have been recently proposed in a video clip by econstories.tv (http://econstories.tv/2011/04/28/
fight-of-the-century-music-video/).
4
In spite of the twenty-three SofT listed in Eatwell et al. (1987) and the report by Dow (2000) that the
number of international associations of heterodox economics is steadily growing (as Lee (2008) quantified, it has
reached the noticeable number of twenty-four), many worry about the unfair power distribution in the discipline
(George, 2007) and the constant risk that an overwhelming influence of the mainstream over alternative
approaches could reduce pluralism in economics (Schiffman, 2005). Moreover, as argued by Axarloglou and
Theoharakis (2003), not only do SofT still guide the research activity of many economists but it also influences
journals’ quality perceptions, the evaluation of individual research and the individual notoriety of economists
as public advisors. For an empirical analysis of the differences between mainstream and heterodox economists
see Di Maio (2012).

3
 While historians of economic thought report the evolution of the different intellectual com-
munities along the time dimension, recently a different group of scholars started to explore
and to measure the relevance of disagreement among economists on a cross sectional dimen-
sion. Kearl et al. (1979) were the first to recollect information on economists’ opinions and
compare them through distance metrics. Using a survey of U.S. based economists, they find
that consensus, measured through an entropy index, was higher about microeconomic issues
rather than macroeconomic ones, and that consensus was also higher on positive rather than
normative issues. Yet they argue that the apparently common perception of disagreement
among US economists on theory and economic policy was wrong. After Kearl et al. (1979)
many other surveys followed (see Fuchs et al. (1998) and De Benedictis and Di Maio (2011)
for a synthesis of the literature).5 Most of them confirm that economists express consensual
opinions more often that what one might expect. Yet disagreement turns out to be sizable
when economic policy issues are considered.
As far as the possible sources of disagreement, some of them appear to be relevant time
and again across different surveys. The first one is spatial heterogeneity: Frey et al. (1984),
and others after them, find a significant difference between the view of economists belonging
to different countries.6 They attribute these difference, among other reasons, to difference in
history and culture associated with geography. The second one is knowledge heterogeneity,
related to different research field or research topic of the economists included in the sample.
Here the evidence is less clear cut. On the one hand, specific competence seems to orient
economists’ opinions also on general economic policy issues, even if the latter are not strictly
related to their field of research (Fuchs et al., 1998).7 On the other hand, Fuchs (1996) shows
5
Alson et al. (1992) conduct a large-scale survey of US economists in all fields asking a subset of the
Kearl et al. (1979) questions. They also conclude that the consensus on positive economics is considerable.
The Alston et al. (1992) propositions have been then used in a number of other studies, becoming a sort of
benchmark. For instance, a subset of Alston et al. (1992) questionnaire is used in Becker et al. (1994) to
compare the views of economists, economic educators, teachers, and journalists and by Fuller et al. (1995) to
evaluate the opinions of the delegates at the 1992 American political conventions. Fuller and Geide-Stevenson
(2003) updates a subset of Kearl et al. (1979) questionnaire.
6
A subset of Kearl et al. (1979) questionnaire is used by Frey et al. (1984) in a survey of economists from
four European countries (Austria, France, Germany, and Switzerland) and by Ricketts and Shoesmith (1992) in
a survey of UK economists. Their results suggest the existence of significant differences in the opinions between
European, UK and US economists. The existence of small but significant differences between American and
European economists has been confirmed by Frey and Eichenberger (1993), Mueller (1995) and Aiginger et
al. (2001).
7
Some evidence comes from the surveys directed to economists active in specific research fields: Economic

4
that, among 50 leading health economists, the disagreement regarding positive questions
more related to theory seems to play no role in explaining differences concerning opinions
on policies. The third one is the heterogeneity in individual characteristics. Here also the
evidence is mixed. Fuchs et al. (1998), surveying labor and public policy economists active
in top US departments, find that individual characteristics are correlated to differences in the
opinion about policy prescriptions. On the contrary, Caplan (2001) shows that disagreement
among a large sample of US economists is not related to their individual characteristics.
The fourth possible source of disagreement is heterogeneity in individual political orienta-
tion. Most of previous contributions have shown that the political affiliation of economists,
expressed in terms of left-wing or right-wing orientation, or in some cases, more precisely
matched to the political landscape of their country of origin, is an important source of vari-
ation with respect to their judgment about policy prescriptions (Fuchs et al. 1998; Klein
and Stern, 2006, 2007; De Benedictis and Di Maio, 2011), even after controlling for other
individual characteristics. The role of ideology in economics is well recognized (albeit con-
troversial) at least since Schumpeter’s 1948 Presidential address to Annual Meeting of the
American Economic Association (Schumpeter, 1948).8 Ideology matters in economic analysis
whenever the inseparability of efficiency and social justice is acknowledged. This is a condi-
tion that is frequently met, and here is where the political economy perspective in welfare
economics acquires its relevance, and where economists can make their views on government
intervention and on economic policy conditional on their political views. Saint-Paul (2011)
includes this assertion into a theoretical model where a self-interested economist, knowing
historians (Whaples, 1995), labor economists (Whaples, 1996), European and American industrial organiza-
tion economists (Aiginger et al., 2001), health economists (Fuchs, 1996), resource economists (Randall, 1985),
public and labor economists (Fuchs et al., 1998). A direct comparison of the surveys’ results is of difficult inter-
pretation, being the sample of the economists included in each survey different on several grounds; but, since
many of the comparable questions come from the Alston et al. (1992) questionnaire, a simple confrontation
of the results confirms that economists working on specific research topics tend to have different orientations
on certain economic policy issues. Frey et al. (2009) report that while more than 40% of German speaking
economists do not think that there is agreement on the most relevant issues in economics, the percentage
significantly decreases when the sample is restricted only to academic economists. This suggests that differ-
ences in opinions may also be related to the type of activity (academic, policy advisor, public administration)
the respondent is involved in. This possibility is ruled out in our analysis since our sample only includes
academics.
8
See also Heilbroner (1993) and Steen (2004) on Schumpeter and on his view of the interplay between
economics and ideology.

5
the true structural model of the economy, reports an ideologically-biased one so as to in-
fluence outcomes according to his own political orientation.9 In equilibrium, a conservative
economist will propose a model with a lower structural Keynesian multiplier, and a greater
long-term inflationary impact of output expansions. A progressive economist will do the op-
posite. Therefore, both empirical evidence and theoretical analysis suggest that ideology is
related to individual opinions.
In this paper we add to this list another possible source of disagreement, namely the SofT,
considering it as a particular kind of community heterogeneity. Apparently, even though it
seems a natural issue to explore, with the remarkable exception of Alston et al. (1992), pre-
vious research on economists’ disagreement did not pay much attention to the quantification
and the significance of the effect that belonging to a different SofT may have on the difference
in opinions between economists.10 Obviously, as we have seen, this does not mean that the
characteristics and role of the SofT in economics have not been explored before. In fact, the
literature discussing the differences across SofT is quite substantial, as it is the one on how
their evolution might have an impact on the profession11 What is indeed novel in our anal-
ysis is the attempt to empirically validate the assertion, coming from historians of economic
thought, that SofT are meaningful communities with respect to economists’ opinions, also as
far as broad policy issues are concerned, controlling for other aspects that could confound
SofT effect. To best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that makes a bridge between
9
In Saint-Paul (2011), the ideologically-biased model influences the expectations of both the people and
the government. The latter tries to stabilize an unobserved demand shock and makes different inferences
about that shock depending on the model the economist is proposing, the former updates its expectations on
both the model and the government action. See also Bénabou (2008) along this line of research.
10
The initial Alston, Kearl and Vaughan survey from 1990 included American Economic Association (AEA)
members as well as American Association for Evolutionary Economists (AFEE) members. By including 150
economists who belong to the Association of Evolutionary Economist, Alston et. al (1992) were able to
test whether AFEE and AEA members showed statistically significant response patterns to a number of
mostly orthodox or mainstream economic propositions. They found that the hypothesis of similar response
distribution was rejected on 32 out of 40 propositions. This finding presented a basis for a survey that was
tailored to AFEE members and resulted in a 1993 paper ”Institutionalists: A United Front or Divergent Voices
of Dissent?” by Alston and Vaughan in the Journal of Economic Issues.
11
Actually, the importance the profession has given to methodology is one of the aspects that traditionally
differentiates European and American economists (Frey et al. 1984; Aiginger et al. 2001). In their classical
study, Frey and Eichenberger (1993) argue that one of the specificities of European economists is considering
the belonging to a particular SofT as important. Moreover, there is evidence that the Europeans are more
open toward heterodox views (Frey and Frey, 1995).

6
the insights coming from the history of economic thought and the literature on economists’
disagreement, and it is the first attempt to quantify the role of the SofT in determining
differences in economists’ views on the functioning of the economy and on the adoption of
specific economic policies.
The paper proceeds as follows. In section 2, we describe the survey used as the primary
information source for the data used in the analysis, and we compare the individual charac-
teristics of the Italian economists belonging to different SofT. In section 3, we evaluate - con-
trolling for spatial heterogeneity, knowledge heterogeneity, individual characteristics, political
orientation and several possible communities economists are or were part of - if economists
belonging to different SofT do express different views on a set of propositions. Next we
consider if grouping economists as polar positions, such as Mainstream vs Non-Mainstream,
Orthodox vs Heterodox, still allows to predict the disagreement between economists. Section
4 summarizes our results and concludes.

2 The survey, the sample and the schools of thought in the

Italian academia

The data we use come from an on purpose on-line survey.12 In 2007 we asked Italian
economists to express their opinions concerning the Italian economic situation.13 The sur-
vey included economists employed in Italian Universities, members of the Italian Economic
Association (SIE), members of the International Association of Italian Economists (AIDEI),
and participants to major economic conferences held in Italy between 2005 and 2006.
The questionnaire was composed of 32 questions:14 6 of them were on the respondent’s
demographics, 2 were on her/his research field, 6 were about the determinants of the Italian
12
The details of the survey design are reported in De Benedictis and Di Maio (2011) and the
full description of the survey can be found in the webpage http://sites.google.com/site/micdimaio/
surveyofItalianeconomists.
13
The time of the survey turned out to be quite appropriate: 2007 was one year before the starting of
the international financial crisis and Italy was in a temporarily stable state both in terms of economic and
political conditions, after years of political turmoil and sluggish economic growth. This is crucial in terms of
the reliability of the information collected. In general, during periods of high economic distress all respondents
tend to express similar (negative) opinion on the (poor) state of the economy.
14
In the advisory notes to the questionnaire it was clearly stated that no specific knowledge was required
to answer any question, that no individual statement would have been revealed, and that discretion on the
anonymity of respondents would have been guaranteed.

7
economic decline, 6 (with 40 sub-questions) were on the causes of the current (i.e. 2007)
Italian economic conditions and 2 (with 18 sub-questions) were on the policy proposals to put
in place to improve Italian economic performance, 5 were on the quality and the effectiveness
of the debate on the Italian economy, and 4 were on the respondent’s personal view (her/his
position in a hypothetical market-vs-state spectrum, attitude toward social mobility, political
stance and level of optimism). Finally, there was a question asking the respondent to self-
declare the SofT she/he belongs to.
Four hundred and ninety-six economists responded, a reply rate of 33%.15 Since for our
analysis we want to rely on a representative sample of Italian economists, we exclude from the
analysis all individuals coming from a population that could not be enumerated. Therefore,
we consider only those respondents that are employed by the Italian Minister of University
and Research (MIUR), excluding all Italian economists working abroad, all post-docs and all
non-academics. The final sample includes 335 respondents. As in any survey of this kind,
respondents self-select themselves, but there is no evidence that the self-selection is somehow
related to the object of the analysis.16 We therefore assume that selection can be taken care
of in regression analysis by adjusting for differences in observed covariates. Moreover, to
15
To give a comparison, the response rate of American Economic Association (AEA) members in previous
surveys are: 34% in Alston et al.(1992), 31% in Fuller and Geide-Stevenson (2003), 36% in Whaples and
Heckelman (2005), 27% in Klein and Stern (2006) and 40% Waples (2006). Usually surveys of economists
within subfields tend to yield higher response rates: for example 41% of AEA labor economists in Whaples
(1996).
16
The ideal comparison between respondents and non-respondents would imply the possibility to compare
the opinion of an individual when responding to the questionnaire with the opinion of the same individual
when not responding. However the two events cannot be observed contemporaneously. In our case, we cannot
follow Rosenbaum and Rubin (1983), assuming that, conditional on a set of covariates, the assignment to the
group of respondents is a-priori independent on being a respondent. Since we do not have any information
on the characteristics of non-respondents we could not rely on any matching strategy ensuring a reliable
conditional strategy. In order to exclude that non-respondents are systematically different for respondents
we can only rely on indirect evidence. To this end, we test this hypothesis using the timing in the response
to the questionnaire by the respondents. The survey was on-line during one month and we sent a reminder
at the beginning of each week. If the fact that respondents and non-respondents might have fundamentally
different opinions can be represented as a smooth process, this would imply that individual average opinion
would change smoothly depending on the time of response. Therefore, we group respondents in four groups
according to the week in which they filled the questionnaire and we test for the difference between means from
the four groups. We find no evidence of any difference. We also reject the hypothesis of a differences in the
variances of the four groups of respondents. Occordingly, we infer that this absence of difference will extend
also to non-respondents.

8
make the sample representative of the entire population we post-weight the data according
to the three strata (gender, academic position and region of work) that we could observe in
the MIUR dataset.17

2.1 Distribution of Italian economists across schools of thought

To minimize errors and misinterpretations, when asking to self-report the SofT they belong
to, the respondents had to choose from a given list of SofT. To guarantee at the same time the
maximum freedom in expressing their methodological orientation we allowed the respondents
to also include an open definition of the methodology that better described their orientation.
Only fifteen economists chose a personal definition. Being these very few, we had to reclassify
these specific responses according to similarity (e.g. the indication of being a Marxist-Leninist
is similar to Marxist, a SofT that was included among the original options).18 The list of
SofT is reported in Table 1. The list is very similar to the one in Axarloglou and Theoharakis
(2003): The main difference is that we also included the Eclectic category. Moreover, all the
SofT discussed in Colander et al. (2003) are included in our list.19
Table 1 reports the distribution of Italian economists across SofT. Almost 1/3 of the
economists in our sample defines themselves as Eclectic. The other two larger groups are the
Neoclassical/Mainstream (18%) and the “I do not refer to any specific SofT” group (here-
after No-school) (17%). If we sum this latter group and Eclectic we see that almost half of
the sample is not categorized in any of the traditional SofT. Among these, after Neoclas-
sical/Mainstream, the larger are Post-Keynesians (11%) and Neo-Keynesians (8%). Even
if much less relevant as percentage, our sample also features Marxists/Sraffians, Evolution-
17
The procedure of post-stratification weighting was based on the reciprocal of the probability of inclusion of
each individual (Groves et al., 2004). Given the identity nijk pijk = Nijk , where n is the number of individuals
in the survey sample, N is the number of individuals in the total population (MIUR), and i = 1, 2, j = 1, . . . , 4
and k = 1, . . . , 19 stand for gender, academic position, and region of work. The corrective weight p of the
generic stratum ijk is simply the reciprocal of the probability of inclusion. In case of empty cells (Nijk > 0
and nijk = 0), we imputed them using a nearest neighbor procedure. Since gender was the least distorted
dimension of the sample, when necessary (16 cases out of 335) we imputed i = 1 for i = 2 and vice versa.
18
This procedure does introduce a (minimal) level of arbitrariness in the interpretation of individual opin-
ions. In Section 3.3 we show that the re-classification of these observations does not distort the results of the
analysis.
19
While we are aware of the distinction discussed in Colander et al. (2003) between Mainstream and
Neoclassical approach, we preferred to consider the two together, to minimize the possible confusion by the
respondents who were not informed about the content of the debate.

9
 Table 1: The distribution of Italian economists across schools of thought

SCHOOL OF THOUGHT Number of respondents %

Eclectic 95 28.35
Neoclassical/Mainstream 59 17.61
I do not refer to any specific SofT 56 16.71
Keynesian/Post-Keynesian 36 10.74
Keynesian/Neo-Keynesian 27 8.06
Institutionalist/Neo-Institutionalist 23 6.87
Evolutionary 17 5.07
Marxist/Sraffian/Neo-Marxist 13 3.88
Behavioral 5 1.49
Regulationist 3 0.89
Austrian/Neo-Austrian 1 0.29

Total 335 100

NOTE: The table includes the responses to the question: How will you define your methodological orientation? Multiple
answers were possible: respondents that indicated three or more options (7 cases out of 335) were added to Eclectic;
double responses (32 cases) were randomly assigned to one of the two options indicated; specific responses (15 cases)
have been reclassified according to similarity (e.g. Marxist-Leninist have been classified as Marxist).

ary and Behavioral economists, Institutionalists, Regulationists and Austrian/Neo-Austrian

economists. These numbers indicate that the Italian academia is characterized by the pres-
ence of a substantial variety of SofT, and that the number of economists belonging to each
school is not uniform.

2.2 Schools of thought, ideology, pro-market orientation and age

On a bivariate dimension, it is possible to rank SofT according to the relative position they
hold in relation to some of the characteristics of the respondents. The most basic distinction
between SofT is notably the one based on ideology. As pointed out by Schumpeter (1948) and
more recently, in different perspectives, by Bénabou (2009) and Saint-Paul (2011), ideology
influences the policy outcome that individuals want to see occur, and people might obtain
expressive utility from confirming their ideological orientation. To appreciate whether and
how SofT differ as for ideology, we project the ideological orientation of the different SofT
(as indicated by the political opinion expressed by the economists that belong to each SofT)
on the left-right spectrum.

10
 The black dots along the horizontal red line in panel (a) in figure 1 depict the average
political opinion in each SofT. Marxist are more left-wing oriented and Mainstream and
Austrian are more (relatively) right-wing oriented. All SofT are concentrated on the center-
left side of the political spectrum (as shown by the shaded Kernel density of the Italian
economists political opinion). The majority of Italian economists is center-left (57%), and
only a small minority describes itself as center-right (7%) or right (3%). What is of even
more general interest is that SofT (at least the most representative ones) do not cover the
entire left-right spectrum in the ideological space. This means that SofT and ideology do
not overlap and must not be considered as collinear. Furthermore, some SofT are barely
distinguishable on an ideological dimension: Marxist and Behavioral economists express the
same political orientation, on average, as Evolutionary and Neo-Keynesian economists do.

[Figure 1 about here]

In panel (b) of figure 1, we project the SofT on the State-vs-Market space. The black dots
along the horizontal red line visualize the average opinion in each SofT about the mechanism
that should drive the allocation of resources in the economy. Marxist are again more extremely
oriented, being more in favor of a stronger presence of the State, while Mainstream, Austrian
and Behavioral economists are more pro-Market oriented. Remarkably, all schools of thought
are concentrated around the Mixed Economy position. The Kernel density is not bell-shaped
anymore, showing a tenuous bimodality. The majority of Italian economists is in fact oriented
toward a Mixed Economy (45%) or toward a more relevant role of the Market (38% in the
less extreme version, and 12% in the most radical version of a Laisez-faire economy). Only a
small minority is in favor of a centrally ruled economy (2%). Again, what is kind of a surprise
is that SofT, when they are represented by the opinion of their supporters, do not cover the
entire State-vs-Market spectrum. As for ideology, the two dimensions, the belonging to a
SofT and the pro-market orientation, are not collinear.
Finally, since SofT appeared and became prevalent in different times, they could be
somehow correlated with the age of economists that received their under-graduate and post-
graduate education in different time periods. The evidence, reported in panel (c) in figure 1
is much less clear cut than what was a-priori expected. As in the two previous panels, the
black dots along the horizontal red line visualize the average age of economists in each SofT.
The majority of Italian economists is concentrated in the two cohorts 41-50 (32%) and 51-60
(29%) and the Kernel density is more uniform than in the two previous cases. Mainstream

11
are relatively younger, while, surprisingly, Behavioral economists are the oldest, and Marxist
and Austrian economists have the same age. Interestingly, the No-school group is not on
the young fringe, bringing some evidence that the lack of interest toward the methodology of
research in economics is not a phenomenon strictly related with the age of economist. Young
economists seem to be more orthodox than disinterested. Again, the two dimensions, the
belonging to a SofT and the age of the economist, are not collinear.
This evidence, together with the one concerning ideology and pro-market orientation,
calls for a multivariate analysis of the role of SofT.

2.3 Are economists belonging to different schools of thought different?

Are economists belonging to different SofT different? To answer this question on a mul-
tivariate dimension, we run a multinomial logistic regression of the respondent’s SofT on
all the covariates of interest (that we indicate with capital letters).20 To take into account
the possible common effect of having studied in the same University we also include fixed
effects for the Universities were the respondents graduated from.21 Table 2 reports the es-
timated multinomial logit regression coefficients.22 Beginning with the variable AGE (an
ordered variable with five categories from younger to older), results show that Mainstream
economists are, conditionally on other covariates, significantly younger than Neo-Keynesian
and Marxist, with the latter including the elder economists on average. As for GENDER (a
dummy variable which takes value 1 if the respondent is a male), Neo-Keynesian, Marxist
and No-school show a significant larger number of males with respect to Mainstream.
Next there are three variables related to if and which type of post-graduate degree the
20
We are forced to exclude Austrian, Behavioral and Regulationist economists from our analysis since they
are too few to guarantee the necessary within-group variability for estimation.
21
We include a fixed effect for any University with more than 10 respondents in our sample, while the
Universities with less than 10 respondents are grouped together in a residual category in order to make the
estimate of the model to converge. The Universities with more that 10 respondents are: ”Bocconi” University
in Milan, Catholic University in Milan, ”La Sapienza” University in Rome, Bologna University, University of
Florence, University of Naples ”Federico II”, University of Pavia, and University of Turin.
22
The interpretation of the multinomial logit coefficient is that for a unit change in the predictor variable,
the logit of the relevant SofT relative to the Mainstream is expected to change by its respective parameter
estimate given the variables in the model are held constant. For instance, if a subject were to increase her
ACADEMIC POSITION from one category to the subsequent, the multinomial log-odds for being an Eclectic
with respect to being a Mainstream would be expected to decrease by 0.53 unit, while holding all other
variables in the model constant.

12
respondent holds.23 The variable MASTER (a dummy taking value 1 if the respondent has a
Master in Economics) indicates that Institutionalists are less likely to have a Master degree
with respect to Mainstream while respondents belonging to any other SofT are not. As for
DOTTORATO (a dummy taking value 1 if the respondent holds a Dottorato)24 it turns
out that Marxists and No-school are more likely than Mainstream respondents to have this
post-graduate degree. On the contrary, the coefficient of the variable PhD (a dummy which
takes value 1 if the respondent holds a PhD, i.e. she/he completed her post-degree studies
abroad) shows that Marxist and Neo-Keynesian are significantly less likely to hold a PhD
with respect to Mainstream economists while this is not true for respondents belonging to
other SofT.
When we look at the ACADEMIC POSITION (an ordered variable, with four subsequent
categories from Assistant Professor to Full Professor), it turns out that, ceteris paribus,
Mainstream are in a higher hierarchical position with respect to Eclectic, Institutionalist
and Neo-Keynesian. As for RESEARCH (an ordered variable, with five categories from pure
empirics to pure theory) there are no large differences across SofT, with Eclectic and No-
school resulting to be more empirically oriented than Mainstream. On the contrary, as for
MARKET (an ordered variable, with five categories from the more market-oriented to the
less market-oriented)25 there are important difference between Mainstream and all the other
economists. Actually, Mainstream are largely more market-oriented than other economists.
Not surprisingly, the largest difference is again found with respect to Marxist and Neo and
Post-Keynesian. Interestingly, there are no significant differences across SofT as for the role
that the Government should play in favoring social mobility (SOCIAL MOBILITY). Instead
looking at the political variables RIGHT (an ordered variable, with five categories from the
more left-wing to the more right-wing oriented), we find that ceteris paribus only Post-
Keynesians are significantly more leftist than Mainstream.26 There seems not to be large
23
Including them in our analysis allows us to control for the fact that economists may in fact self-select into
different SofT according to their preexisting opinions.
24
Dottorato is the highest post-graduate degree offered by Italian Universities. We include it as a separate
control to differentiate between respondents that completed their post-graduate studies in Italy or abroad.
25
In this case the respondents were answering to following question: Which allocative mechanism you
consider the most appropriate in the organization of the economic activity? . There were five possible alter-
natives, with ‘the State’ (classified as 1) and ‘the Market’ (classified as 5) at the extremes.
26
The point estimate of Marxist, as it is natural to expect, is the highest (with a negative sign), meaning
that this SofT is a the left hedge of the political spectrum of the various SofT. At the same time, also the
standard errors are very high, meaning that the variability of the political stance of Marxists is also (relatively)

13
differences as for OPTIMISM, with only Institutionalist and No-school economists being
significantly more pessimistic than Mainstream.

Table 2: Differences in individual characteristics across schools of thought

Baseline SofT category Eclectic Inst. Neo-Keyn Post-Keyn Marxist Evolut. No-school
Mainstream
AGE 0.212 0.597 1.013** 0.931 4.139** 0.308 0.381
(0.422) (0.564) (0.503) 0.574) (1.710) (0.477) (0.418)
GENDER 0.781 1.301 2.049** 0.749 22.113** 0.316 1.762**
(0.597) (0.922) (0.966) (0.779) (9.332) (0.942) (0.752)
MASTER -0.448 -2.171** 0.141 -1.221 0.811 0.597 -0.800
(0.542) (0.951) (0.852) (0.746) (1.210) (0.920) (0.620)
DOTTORATO -0.063 0.014 -1.073 0.984 8.878** -0.264 1.398*
(0.740) (1.149) (1.123) (1.066) (3.809) (1.109) (0.832)
PhD -1.175** -1.127 -1.675* -0.104 -39.297*** -0.629 -0.307
(0.596) (0.995) (0.962) (0.843) (3.476) (0.842) (0.659)
ACADEMIC POSITION -0.534* -0.744* -1.260*** -0.433 0.420 -0.648 -0.366
(0.302) (0.419) (0.446) (0.457) (0.715) (0.513) (0.387)
RESEARCH -0.529** -0.403 -0.450 -0.211 0.019 -0.527 -1.189***
(0.236) (0.299) (0.331) (0.316) (0.646) (0.335) (0.282)
MARKET -1.360*** -1.218** -2.037*** -2.124*** -3.977*** -1.193** -0.873*
(0.423) (0.556) (0.529) (0.612) (0.992) (0.522) (0.456)
SOCIAL MOBILITY -0.146 -0.048 0.246 -0.495 0.234 0.440 -0.504
(0.340) (0.402) (0.391) (0.369) (1.399) (0.666) (0.389)
RIGHT 0.415 0.298 0.205 -0.914* -1.911 -0.037 0.250
(0.372) (0.599) (0.463) (0.527) (1.505) (0.557) (0.405)
OPTMISM -0.435 -1.006** 0.215 -0.092 0.226 -0.374 -1.456***
(0.351) (0.507) (0.470) (0.435) (0.505) (0.525) (0.420)

NOTE: The table reports multinomial logistic regression coefficients. The dependent variable is SofT. ∗∗∗ ,∗∗ ,∗ mean
significant at the 1%, 5%, 10% respectively. The reference category is Mainstream. A constant and a fixed effects
for the University were the respondent did graduate are included but the coefficients are not shown. Robust standard
errors are in parenthesis. The regression is weighted, using the procedure in Groves et al. (2004), see also footnote 16
in the text. # of observations is 238. Pseudo-R2 = 0.31, P rob > χ2 = 0.000. Mean values (Standard Deviation) for the
control variables for the reference category, Mainstream: AGE 1.96 (0.93); GENDER 0.80 (.41); MASTER 0.52 (0.50);
DOTTORATO 0.43 (0.50); PhD 0.44 (0.50); RESEARCH 3.30 (1.16); ACADEMIC POSITION 4.06 (1.05); MARKET
4.06 (0.72); SOCIAL MOBILITY 4.20 (.91); RIGHT 2.40 (.88); OPTIMISM 3.46 (.81).

The result that economists belonging to different SofT are significantly different has some
interesting consequences. For instance, it implies that it would be an error to interpret the
disagreement across economists belonging to different SofT as a measure of the disagreement
high, so to make the point estimate not statistically different from zero, ceteris paribus.

14
between schools. Indeed, our results indicate that individual characteristics have to be con-
trolled for if one wants to correctly evaluate the role of the SofT in explaining economists’
disagreement. This is precisely what we do in the next section.

3 Schools of thought in action: The Italian case

To test the hypothesis that differences in economists’ opinions on normative issues are re-
lated to respondents belonging to different SofT, we focus on the two core questions in the
questionnaire. The first one is Do you think that THIS is a cause of the unfavorable per-
formance of the Italian economy? , followed by a pre-defined list of forty broad economic,
social and political issues considered in academic or general debates as possible causes of the
Italian economic conditions, such as The adoption of the Euro or Labor Union behavior. The
second question is Can IT be effective to revive the Italian economy from the current phase
of difficulty? . Also this question was followed by a list of eighteen proposals, all expressed
in terms of broad policies to be implemented, such as the opportunity To proceed with more
liberalizations or Funding academic research. The complete list of what we will call from now
on Causes and Policy Proposals is included in the Appendix.27
Economists’ opinions on these forty Causes and eighteen Policy proposals are our main ob-
ject of analysis. For each of the 58 propositions we separately estimate E(opinioni |Sof Ti , ci ),
where opinioni is the opinion of individual i on the proposition, Sof Ti is the categorical vari-
able indicating the SofT of the individual i and the vector ci denotes the set of control
variables that we hold fixed while evaluating the effect of Sof Ti on the expected value of
opinioni . From our analysis in section 2.3, we know that it is indeed crucial to control for
the differences in the characteristics of individuals to capture the effect of Sof Ti . Still, if
an individual or community characteristic, not included in the regression, affects both the
SofT the economist declares to belong to and the economist’s opinions the regression would
27
All the Propositions (Causes and Policy Proposals) that we included in the list are the ones discussed in
the academic literature on the performance of the Italian economy during the last 15 years. This procedure was
chosen to minimize the possible bias on the side of the survey-designers in choosing which possible alternative
issues to be included in the pre-defined list. Therefore, in designing of the questionnaire we decided to refer to
the selection revealed by the profession though publications. Note that also the grouping of the Proposition
into Causes and Policy proposals has followed the same methodology. De Benedictis and Di Maio (2011)
discuss the details on the methodology employed to select the essays from which the Causes and Policy
Proposals have been extracted.

15
suffer from an omitted variable bias. While we cannot in principle exclude this possibility,
we include in vector ci all information we could collect concerning individual characteris-
tics, spatial heterogeneity, knowledge heterogeneity, political orientation, and other possible
community heterogeneity in addition to SofT.
The variable opinioni is the detection of a continuous latent variable, opinion∗i , that can
be divided into J ordinal categories, where the thresholds separating the different categories
are going to be estimated. In practice, for each of the 58 propositions, economists expressed
their agreement on the fact that the content of that proposition was a relevant Cause or an
appropriate Policy proposal. The answer was expressed on a Likert scale with four ordered
options, coded as follows: Strongly Disagree (SD)=1; Partially Disagree (PD)=2; Partially
Agree (PA)=3; Strongly Agree (SA)=4.28 The continuous latent variable can be thought of
as the propensity to agree with the proposition, and the observed response categories are tied
to the latent variable by the estimated thresholds.
We can therefore write the population model as an ordinal regression model:

opinioni = β1 Sof Ti + ci βc + ui , (1)

where ui is a normally distributed error term, with var(ui ) = 1. To make our sample as close
as possible to a generic draw from the population of economists in Italian Universities, we
weight the ordinal regression using the same procedure we previously described.

3.1 Economists’ opinions and the school of thought

Given the characteristics of the population model in equation 1, we run 58 separate weighted
ordered probit regressions of the respondent’s opinion concerning the content of the propo-
sitions on her/his SofT, including a large set of controls ci for individual characteristics
(AGE, GENDER, MIGRANT,29 WORRY,30 OPTIMISM), community heterogeneity (RE-
28
Respondents could also select the option ‘No opinion’. Those cases (very limited: One or two for each
proposition) were excluded from the sample.
29
This covariate takes value 1 if the respondent is working in a different region with respect to her/his
birthplace, and 0 otherwise.
30
This covariate measures the respondent’s self-declared level of worry (and its change in the last five years)
about the perspectives for the Italian economy.

16
GION OF BIRTH, UNIVERSITY BA,31 STUDIED ABROAD [1 and 2],32 ACADEMIC
POSITION), spatial heterogeneity (REGION OF WORK), knowledge heterogeneity (MAS-
TER, DOTTORATO/PhD,33 FIELD OF RESEARCH,34 ITALY,35 DEBATE36 ) and political
orientation (MARKET, SOCIAL MOBILITY and RIGHT). Finally, to account for the possi-
bility that the respondent’s opinions are influenced by the peers with whom she/he interacts
on an everyday basis we cluster standard errors at the level of the University where the
respondent is employed.
To test whether Sof Ti is a determinant of economists’ opinions, we run a likelihood
test ratio between the ordinal regression model in equation 1 with and without the variable
Sof Ti . Results indicate that Sof Ti is significant in 27 out of 40 Causes. In the case of Policy
proposals, the role of the SofT is as much as important being significant in 12 propositions
out of 18. These results show that, even controlling for a large number of covariates from
individual characteristics to political opinions, the SofT plays an important role in explaining
differences in economists’ opinions.
While the number of propositions for which Sof Ti is significant indicates whether the
31
To account for the possibility that respondents who have studied in the same environment may have
elaborated similar views on the economy and its functioning we include a set of fixed-effects for the University
where the respondent received her/his B.A. degree. As in the analysis in section 2.3, we include a fixed-effect
for each of the nine Universities with more than ten respondents in our sample and, for matter of convergence,
we group together the remaining Universities.
32
To control for possible differences in economists’ opinions due to their different exposure to an international
environment, we include two dummy variables taking value 1 if the master and the post-graduate degree are
respectively earned abroad and zero otherwise. The reason to include this set of variables as controls comes
from the acknowledgment that “if” and “where” economists earned their post-graduate degree (PhD or else)
needs to be controlled for because this initial (to some extent not fully informed) choice might have influenced
their future economic view of thinking.
33
In addition to MASTER (a dummy variable which takes value 1 if the respondent holds a Master in
economics and zero otherwise), we include a dummy variable DOTTORATO/PhD that takes value 1 if the
respondent holds an Italian Dottorato or a PhD and 0 otherwise.
34
The fields of research are classified according to the JEL codes. The largest group respondents belong
to is Macroeconomic and Monetary Economics (17%). The other large groups are Industrial Organization
(12%), Economic Development and Growth (11%), International Economics (10%), Public Economics (9%)
and Microeconomics (9%).
35
The variable measures the respondent’s knowledge about the Italian economy, proxied by the study of
the Italian Economy being her/his primary or secondary field or research.
36
The variable measures whether the respondent has taken part to the public debate on the Italian economic
situation.

17
SofT plays any role in explaining economists’ disagreement,37 it is also important to know
on which issues differences in opinions between economists are related to differences in their
SofT. The full list of Causes and Policy proposals for which Sof Ti is significant are reported
in tables 3 and 4. While several aspects of the results could be emphasized, for brevity here
we focus only on few of them.
First, when the opinion of Mainstream economists is significantly different from the one
of economists belonging to other SofT, in all cases (but Propositions 3, 14 and 28 for the
Causes and proposition 14 for the Policy proposals) the latter’s opinion goes in the same
direction, i.e. the point estimates significantly different from zero have the same sign. This
suggests that Mainstream economists, when in disagreement with other SofT, are very often
at one extreme of the spectrum of the different opinions. Second, when there are signifi-
cantly different opinions among SofT the sign of the coefficient is frequently negative (the
proportion between negative and positive signs is 104 : 22). This indicates that - in general -
Mainstream economists agree with the content of the propositions more than the other SofT
do. This suggests that, taken together, the propositions matche the Mainstream view more
than any other possible alternative view. This is indeed not surprising considering that -
as we mentioned - the propositions have been extracted from the academic literature on the
Italian economy, and that Mainstream economists are relatively prevalent both numerically
(as we reported in table 1) and in academic career (as it is revealed by the ACADEMIC
POSITION coefficient in table 2).
Looking at the effect of Sof Ti on E(opinioni |Sof Ti , ci ) for each proposition38 , we can
highlight some other interesting results. As for Causes, it is apparent that the strongest
differences between the SofT concern the role that the Quality and quantity of infrastructure,
the Low level of domestic competition, the Bureaucratic impediment to private entrepreneur-
37
Looking at the full list of Causes and Policy proposals, it should be noted that the propositions are not
independent/orthogonal across them. Some indeed differ only for some detail while others are quite specific
and unique. It follows that the number of propositions for which Sof Ti is significant should just be taken as
an broad indication of the significance of the SofT in individual opinions. It is also worth mentioning that,
on average, the propositions for which Sof Ti is not significant are the ones that received the highest level of
consensus (measured by an entropy index and a different consensus index). See De Benedictis and Di Maio
(2011) on this issue.
38
The coefficients are the ordered probit regression estimates of the difference between being a Mainstream
rather than belonging to another SofT on the expected level of the respondent’ opinion given the other variables
are held constant in the model. For instance, for Cause 3 the probit for a Marxist of being in a higher opinion
category is 1.58 less than for a Mainstream.

18
ship, the Low human capital supply, the Labor Union behaviour and the Low efficiency of
the Public Administration and of the bureaucracy play in determining the current difficulties
of the Italian economy. Mainstream economists give these Causes a much more important
role in being responsible for the current difficulties of the Italian economic situation than
economists belonging to all other SofT do. On the contrary, the European Commission eco-
nomic policy, the ECB monetary policy, the Small firms’ size the Persistence of the Italian
North-South economic divide and the Type of policies adopted to reduce the public debt are
all Causes that economists belonging to other SofT consider more important in explaining
the economic difficulties of Italy than Mainstream do.
When we consider the Policy proposals, we find that the largest and more significant
differences in opinions seem to emerge with respect to the evaluation of the usefulness of
policies such as Proceed with more liberalizations, the need to Make the labor market more
flexible and Reduce Labor Union power. In all these cases the difference in opinions between
the Mainstream and the other SofT is quite large and it is largest with respect to Marxist,
Post-Keynesian and Evolutionary economists.
As far as the revealed economic policy preferences of each SofT relative to Mainstream,
the Policy proposal that almost all SofT dislike the most is Proceed with more liberalizations.
Marxist and No-school have their own preferred negative choices: Make the labor market
more flexible and Reduce Labor Union power. On the contrary, the preferred Policy proposal
is quite SofT-specific. The most frequently chosen is Reduce precarious jobs (Eclectic, Evolu-
tionary, and No-School), while Institutionalist chose Create and strengthen firm-territory link,
Neo-Keynesian Funding academic research, Post-Keynesian Increase investments in physical
infrastructures, and Marxist Increase public investment in strategic sectors.
Finally, making bilateral comparisons always having the Mainstream as a reference, we
can notice that over the 39 propositions included in tables 3 and 4, Eclectics show a different
opinion with respect to Mainstream 20 times, Institutionalists 10 times, Neo-Keynesians 14
times, Post-Keynesians 20 times, Marxists 26 times, Evolutionary economists 20 times, and
the No-school 18 times. From this rough metric one can see that Institutionalists are the most
similar to Mainstream economists as far as their opinions on normative issue are concerned.
Simple tests could allow to evaluate the relative pair-wise difference between SofT.

19
 Table 3: Causes - Ordered Probit Regressions

Causea Eclectic Inst Neo-Keyn Post-Keyn Marxist Evolutionary No-school

3 Dumping and unfair international competition -0.601** 0.495 0.837* -0.302 -1.576** -0.714* 0.108
5 Low attraction of FDI -0.440 -0.216 0.202 -0.973** -2.100*** -0.734 -0.013
7 Adoption of the Euro -0.951** 0.166 -0.540 -0.431 -0.597 -0.554 -0.230
8 European Commission economic policy -0.312 0.724* -0.148 0.309 1.749** 0.175 -0.179
9 BCE monetary policy -0.384 0.994*** 0.774 0.593 1.962 0.413 0.320
10 Primary commodity world price dynamics -1.234*** -0.313 -0.399 -0.298 -0.844 -0.831* -0.668**
11 Difficult international political situation -1.547*** -0.512 -0.680 -1.141*** -0.788 -0.334 -0.844**
14 Small firms’ size (more difficult the adoption of new technologies) 0.275 -0.236 0.767* 0.182 -0.895* 0.588 0.309
15 Small firms’s size (more difficult the innovation activity) 0.194 0.098 1.106*** 0.668* -0.571 0.545 0.189
18 Low risk propensity of entrepreneurs -0.824*** -0.467 -1.362*** -0.763** -0.400 -0.097 -0.878**
19 Excessive protection of large domestic firms -0.645** -0.302 -0.893** -0.350 -0.966* -0.848 -0.779***
21 Quantity and quality of infrastructures -0.588* 0.066 -0.790* -0.252 -1.189* -1.203** -0.878**
22 Quality of immaterial infrastructures (justice, authority, etc.) -0.740 -0.348 -0.758 -2.204*** -3.273*** -2.045** -2.124***
23 Low competition level, the existence of barriers to entry -0.614 -0.812** -1.029** -1.112** -3.260*** -1.661*** -0.840**
24 Bureaucratic impediments to private entrepreneurship -0.627** -0.735* -0.481 -0.469 -1.681*** -1.016** -0.662*

20
25 Difficulties to gaining access to credit -0.764*** -0.132 -0.318 0.021 -0.588 -0.129 -0.058
26 Persistence of the Italian North-South economic divide -0.018 0.414 0.094 0.394 1.184** -0.084 -0.176
27 Mezzogiornob issue (crime) -0.259 -0.188 0.196 0.478 0.134 -1.001*** -0.659***
28 Mezzogiornob issue (infrastructures) 0.097 -0.200 0.278 1.007*** -0.316 -0.875** -0.345
30 Low labor market flexibility -1.397*** -0.213 -0.519 -1.342*** -10.037*** -0.574 -0.373
32 Demographic dynamics -0.845*** -0.192 -0.163 -0.528 -1.535*** -0.843* -0.888***
34 Low human capital supply -1.764*** -1.436*** -1.410*** -1.154** -3.535*** -2.081*** -1.741***
36 Labor Union behavior -0.580* -0.362 -0.521 -0.857* -1.442*** -1.169*** -0.880***
37 Public debt level and composition -0.754** 0.071 -0.079 -0.765** -2.101*** -0.907* -0.494
38 Type of policies adopted to reduce public debt -0.285 0.742* -0.160 0.170 1.150 0.356 0.267
39 Low efficiency of the Public Administration -0.470* -0.483 -0.749* -0.995** -1.488* -2.140*** -1.105***
40 Low efficiency of the bureaucracy -0.521 -0.356 -0.769* -0.847* -2.246*** -1.330*** -0.798**

Notes: Weighted ordered probit regressions results. ∗∗∗ ,∗∗ ,∗ mean significant at the 1%, 5%, 10% respectively. a The dependent variable is the ordered response to the question
Do you think that THIS is a cause of the unfavorable performance of the Italian economy? . b With Mezzogiorno one refers to the Southern regions of the country. Controls
included but which coefficients are not shown are: AGE, GENDER, MIGRANT, WORRY, OPTIMISM, REGION OF BIRTH, STUDIED ABROAD [1 AND 2], ACADEMIC
POSITION, REGION OF WORK, MASTER, DOTTORATO/PhD, FIELD OF RESEARCH, ITALY, DEBATE, MARKET, SOCIAL MOBILITY and RIGHT. We include fixed-
effects for the University where the respondent received her B.A (UNIVERSITY BA). Standard error are robust and clustered at the level of the University where the respondent
is currently employed. Weights are used. More information on the controls and the weights are included in the text. The number in the first column corresponds to the number of
the Proposition in the list of Causes as reported in the Appendix.
 Table 4: Policy Proposals - Ordered Probit Regressions

Policy proposala Eclectic Inst Neo-Keyn Post-Keyn Marxist Evolutionary No-school

1 Proceed with more liberalizations -1.624*** -1.851*** -1.590*** -1.777*** -2.589*** -2.091*** -0.973***
2 Proceed with more privatizations -0.743** -0.471 -0.026 -0.685 -1.488* -0.994*** -0.068
3 Increase bureaucracy (Public Administration) efficiency 0.007 -0.221 -0.309 -1.101** -0.561 -1.254* -0.613
8 Create small and medium firms consortia -0.328 0.212 0.570 0.822** 1.476** 0.252 0.513
9 Create and strengthen firm-territory link -0.315 0.969*** 0.200 0.053 -0.202 0.583 0.677*
10 Increase public investment in strategic sectors 0.270 0.932** 0.595 1.104** 1.707** 0.342 0.486
11 Increase firms’ investment in ICT -0.524 -0.273 0.066 0.043 -1.784*** 0.476 -0.283

21
14 Funding academic research -0.104 -0.244 0.849* 0.096 -1.330*** -0.511 -0.288
15 Increase investments in physical infrastructures -0.350 0.620 0.061 1.298*** 0.081 -0.679 -0.444
16 Make the labor market more flexible -0.755** -0.262 -0.960** -0.822** -2.715*** -1.055** -0.368
17 Reduce precarious jobs 0.436* 0.666 -0.403 0.721 1.099** 1.501** 0.838**
18 Reduce Labor Union power -0.967*** -0.805** -1.244*** -1.362*** -1.881*** -1.558*** -1.250***

Notes: Weighted ordered probit regressions results. ∗∗∗ ,∗∗ ,∗ mean significant at the 1%, 5%, 10% respectively. a The dependent variable is the ordered response to the question
Can IT be effective to revive the Italian economy from the current phase of difficulty? . Controls included but which coefficients are not shown are: AGE, GENDER,
MIGRANT, WORRY, OPTIMISM, REGION OF BIRTH, STUDIED ABROAD [1 and 2], ACADEMIC POSITION, REGION OF WORK, MASTER, DOTTORATO/PhD,
FIELD OF RESEARCH, ITALY, DEBATE, MARKET, SOCIAL MOBILITY and RIGHT. We include fixed-effects for the University where the respondent received her B.A
(UNIVERSITY BA). Standard error are robust and clustered at the level of the University where the respondent is currently employed. Weights are used. More information on the
controls and the weights are included in the text. The number in the first column corresponds to the number of the Proposition in the list of Policy proposals as reported in the
Appendix.
3.2 Robustness checks

As a first robustness check, we further increase the number of controls included in ci . We

include a dummy variable that takes value 1 if the respondent has a DEGREE in economics39
and 0 otherwise (i.e. a degree in Law, Statistics, Mathematics, History, Political Science).
This is an important control for two reasons. On the one hand, the choice of the degree
and of the Major field in the B.A. program is a choice that the individual is most likely to
take before the methodological choice related to a specific SofT. It follows that DEGREE
is a possible confounder that could affect both the choice of the SofT and the economist’s
opinions. On the other hand, DEGREE captures a specific kind of community heterogeneity
because students are exposed to different programs, different textbooks and more or less
advanced teaching in economics depending on the type of degree they are enrolled in. We
also include the interaction between the DEGREE dummy and the respondent’s AGE to
control for the possibility that agreement between economists on the propositions is due
to the fact that respondents had studied economics in the same historical period and thus
having - for instance - been exposed to the same teaching materials. Adding these controls
the number of propositions for which Sof Ti is significant does not change with respect to the
main specification.
As a second check, we explore the possibility that what really makes a difference among
economists is the adherence or not to a specific SofT. To test for this, we run for all 58
propositions the ordinal regression model in equation 1 main regression model now including
instead of the Sof Ti variable a dummy variable taking value 1 if the respondent declares not
to belong to any school of thought and 0 otherwise. The results (not reported, but available
upon request) show that for no Causes and for only 4 Policy proposals the dummy variable
is significantly different from zero. Next, we run our main specification excluding from the
sample all the economists belonging to the No-school category. We find that our previous
results do not change: The Sof Ti variable turns out to be significant for 27 Causes out of 40
and for 12 Policy proposals out of 18. Together, these results indicate that it does not make
a difference in terms of her/his opinions if the respondent belongs or not to a SofT, what
matters is rather which is the SofT he/she belongs to.
39
We consider economic degrees the following ones: Economia (Economics), Economia Agraria (Agricultural
Economics), Economia Aziendale (Business Administration), Economia Politica (Economic Policy), Economia
e Commercio (Economics and Business), Scienze Economiche (Economic Science) and Scienze Economiche e
Sociali (Economics and Social Science).

22
 As a further robustness check, we estimate the 58 propositions excluding from the sample
the 15 respondents that provided their personal definition for the SofT they belong to. While,
as discussed in Section 2.1, in the basic regression we have included these observations after
having distributed each of them in the most similar SofT, here we just exclude them from
the sample to preserve their original choice. Again, results do not change.
Finally we want to check that the significance of the effect of our variable of interest is
related to the respondents’ belonging to a SofT, instead to a peculiar feature of our dataset.
From the summary of the results in tables 3 and 4, we know (see the first column in the
tables) that in 19 cases out of 58 propositions the Sof Ti variable is not significant. Therefore,
Sof Ti does not appear as a variable of ubiquitous explicative power. To have a more formal
confirmation of that we run two placebo tests. In the first one, instead of opinioni we regress
the respondent’s region of birth, REGION OF BIRTH i on Sof Ti , including the usual set of
control variables, ci . In the second one, we regress a measure of domestic spatial mobility
of respondents, the dummy variable MIGRANT i , on Sof Ti and ci . In both cases, Sof Ti
should not play any role. In both cases, we find that for none of the 58 regressions Sof Ti is
significant.

3.3 Mainstream, Non-mainstream or Heterodox: Does it make any differ-

ence?

As we have seen, economists belonging to different SofT are different in terms of both char-
acteristics and opinions on the economy. Yet SofT are sometimes grouped as to form two
opposing fronts such as Mainstream vs. Non-mainstream or Orthodox vs. Heterodox, etc.
While these dichotomies are common ways of grouping SofT (and economists), are they also
somehow informative? For instance, how much does the dichotomy Mainstream vs Hetero-
dox account for differences in economists’ opinions? Indeed there are some doubts about
the usefulness of such labels. Colander et al. (2003) argue that beyond the rejection of
the orthodoxy there is no single unifying element that characterizes heterodox economics.40
Moreover, George (2007) notes that while modern economics has a tightly defined orthodoxy,
the heterodoxy is highly fragmented. Yet Dow (2007) argues that, even if the dualism of
orthodoxy vs. heterodoxy is too simplistic, it still may be useful. The following analysis,
using the same data we used in section 3.1, gives a quantitative contribution and helps to
40
For a discussion on the elements that define an heterodox school of thought and for a brief historical
account of heterodox schools see also Backhouse (2000) and Coats (2000).

23
qualify this specific debate.

Table 5: Groups definitions

Mainstream group Outside-Mainstream group Residual group

1 Mainstream(M ) Non-Mainstream (N-M )

Neo-classical/Mainstream Institutionalist, Neo-Keynesian, No-school, Eclectic

Marxist/Sraffian, Austrian,
Regulationist, Behavioralist,
Post-Keynesian, Evolutionary

2 MainstreamLarge (ML) HeterodoxJEL (HJEL)

Neo-classical/Mainstream Marxist/Sraffian, Institutionalist, No-school, Eclectic,

Neo-Keynesian Evolutionary, Austrian Post-Keynesian,
Behavioralist,
Regulationist

3 MainstreamLarge (ML) Non-MainstreamLarge (N-ML)

Neo-classical/Mainstream Marxist/Sraffian, Institutionalist No-school, Eclectic

Neo-Keynesian Evolutionary, Austrian
Post-Keynesian, Regulationist
Behavioralist

Obviously, the most critical element of the empirical analysis is the way we group SofT
under a common label like Mainstream, Heterodox, etc. Since there is neither a unique nor a
consolidated taxonomy, we consider different alternatives, that we summarize in table 5. The
first group we define is Mainstream (M). This group includes only economists declaring to be-
long to the Neo-classical/Mainstream SofT. The complementary Outside-Mainstream group is
Non-Mainstream (N-M). It includes all the SofT in our list but the Neo-classical/Mainstream
one: Eclectic, Institutionalist, Post-Keynesian, Neo-Keynesian, Marxist/Sraffian, Austrian,
Evolutionary, Regulationist, Behavioralist. However, as for every case of false dualism, the
two options M and N-N do not complete the set of possibilities. In fact, apart from M and
N-M, a residual group of economist exists, the one declaring not to belong to any or to a
single SofT (e.g. Eclectic, No-school), and that cannot be attributed neither to M nor to
N-M.

24
 A further possible definition of mainstream economists, labeled MainstreamLarge (ML), is
the one that includes both Neo-classical/Mainstream and Neo-Keynesian economists. In this
case, the complementary group is Non-MainstreamLarge (N-ML), including Marxist/Sraffian,
Institutionalist, Evolutionary, Austrian, Post-Keynesian, Evolutionary, Regulationist, Behav-
ioralist.41 The Residual group is identical to the previous case. The last definition that we
consider is derived from the JEL classification system where Current Heterodox Approaches
(JEL-B5) are said to be Marxist, Institutionalist, Sraffian, Evolutionary, Austrian, Post-
Keynesian, Regulationist and Behavioralist. We call this Outside-Mainstream group Hetero-
doxJEL (HJEL), and the Residual group is now made of Eclectic, No-school, Evolutionary,
Regulationist and Behavioralist.

3.3.1 Regression results

Since the group definitions described in table 5 are usually employed to describe the division
inside the profession, we now assess the ability of these categorizations to capture systematic
differences in economists’ opinions on the economy. For each definition (1, 2 and 3 in table
5), we estimate a set of 58 weighted ordered probit models similar to the one in equation
1. The only difference is that this time we regress the dependent variable opinioni on the
corresponding categorical variable (N-M i , HJELi and N-MLi ) defined as in table 5, instead
of Sof Ti . In all 3 × 58 regressions we include the same set of controls ci used in Section 3.1.

[Figure 2 about here]

Figure 2 displays the relevant results in a single plot. We only report information on
the partial effect of the main variable(s) of interest (N-M i , HJELi and N-MLi ), while the
complete set of results can be obtained upon request. The dots in figure 2 represent the
point estimates of the regressions: Black circles for the estimates of the (58) ordinal regres-
sion models that includes the categorical variable N-M i , white circles for the ones including
HJELi , and gray circles for the ones including N-MLi . Horizontal segments depict 95%
confidence intervals. The vertical line at zero is placed for convenience, so to detect when
the relevant coefficient is not statistically significant at p < 0.05, e.g. when the confidence
41
This group closely resembles the definition of heterodox as in Prychitko (1998). Dow (2000) defines
as heterodox SofT the Post-Keynesians, the Institutionalist school, the Neo-Austrian school, Behavioralists,
Social economics, Feminist economics. For a thoughtful discussion of the concept of heterodox economics see
also Lee (2008).

25
interval of each estimate is crossing the zero vertical line (that visualizes the null hypothesis).
The y-axis reports all the propositions included in tables 3 and 4. The other propositions are
not considered because for them the variable capturing the influence of the SofT was already
not significant when using the polytomous variable Sof Ti .
Figure 2 shows that the number of propositions where the point estimate is statistically
significant for all the possible definitions of Outside-mainstream group defined in table 5 (i.e.
N-M, HIJE, N-ML) is substantially reduced. Only in seven cases the variable of interest is
significant for all the group definitions. For two of them (BCE monetary policy and Public
investment in strategic sectors) all Outside-mainstream groups have a positive stance; for five
of them (Immaterial infrastructure, Low competition, Low human capital supply among the
Causes and More liberalizations, Reduce Labor Union power among the Policy proposals) all
Outside-mainstream groups have a negative stance. Looking at the 95% confidence intervals,
it is possible to observe that in no cases switching from one of the three group definitions
to another one gives rise to a significant change of a positive orientation to a negative one,
and vice versa. Still, some point estimates might change sign (as in the case of Dumping and
unfair international competition and a couple of other cases related to the size of firms as a
Cause).
More in general, the point estimates plotted in figure 2 are fundamentally related to the
results shown in tables 3 and 4. Let us take the Dumping and unfair international competition
proposition as an example. The estimates for this proposition reported in table 3, referring
to the use of the categorical variable Sof Ti , show that four SofT express a significantly
different opinion with respect to the Mainstream reference category: Neo-Keynesians show
more positively values than Mainstream economists, while Eclectics, Evolutionary economists
and especially Marxists show more negatively values. When we use the categorical variable
N-M i , some Outside-mainstream SofT are grouped together, while Eclectics and No-school
constitute the residual category. Since the Outside-mainstream SofT included in N-M were
expressing opposite opinions, when they are grouped together their average opinion is not
anymore statistically different from the one of Mainstream. Moreover, since Neo-Keynesians
and Institutionalists, that express a more positive opinion, are the more numerous in the
sample of individuals considered in the regression (excluding dropped-out and individuals in
the residual category) their opinion prevails, as it is shown by the relevant black circle at the
left of the zero vertical line in figure 2. Moving to the second group definition, when HJELi is
used, Neo-Keynesian and Mainstream are grouped together. Since they express significantly

26
different opinions, now it is the reference category M-L that is expressing a less homogeneous
view. This results in a non significant difference between the average opinion of individuals
in M-L and in HJEL. Since a negative stance is now prevalent among individuals in HJEL
this also shows up in the aggregate, as it is visualized by the relevant white circle in figure 2.
As far as the third group definition N-ML, adding the Regulationist, Behavioralist and Post-
Keynesian to the Outside-mainstream group, does not change the picture much. However,
since Post-Keynesians do not express a significantly different opinion than Mainstream, in
the aggregate the point estimate of the variable N-MLi is closer to zero then how it was for
HJELi , as shown by the gray circle in figure 2.
A second clarifying example is when all SofT express a significantly different opinion with
respect to Mainstream, showing that individual opinions are very polarized. This is the case of
Low human capital supply among the Causes as reported in figure 3 and as the cases of Proceed
with more liberalizations and Reduce Labor Union power among the Policy proposals as in
table 4. Here, no matter how we group together the Outside-mainstream SofT and how we
define the mainstream group, the result is always the same: The significantly different opinion
between Mainstream and the other SofT is preserved in the aggregate Outside-mainstream
group, as it is shown in figure 2. When the mainstream group is represented by M-L, where
Neo-Keynesian and Neo-classical/Mainstream are grouped together, this results in lower point
estimates (as shown by the relevant white and gray circles) because the reference category
M-L is less homogeneous than how M is.
More broadly, it is possible to evaluate each single proposition using the same logic as
in the two previous examples, observing how point estimates and significance change with
the use of the three different group definitions as in table 5. The take-home message from
figure 2 is simple and instructive: when we aggregate SofT expressing different opinions, the
procedure of grouping and separating loses power in explaining individual opinions, because
we are increasing within-group differences and reducing between-group differences; when we
aggregate SofT expressing similar opinions we obtain the opposite. The evidence coming
from our analysis shows that the first case is prevalent.
To summarize, the way one groups together different SofT is crucial for their explicative
power with respect to economists’ opinions. Our results show that groups like Mainstream,
Non-Mainstream and Heterodox, in spite of the ease of using them for representing debates as
the confrontation of polar positions, have limited significance in explaining the differences in
individuals’ opinions. On the contrary, more articulated procedure of grouping and separating

27
that preserves and distinguish the differences between SofT can significantly explain these
very individual differences.

4 Conclusions

Can disagreements among economists on the causes hindering economic growth or on the
effectiveness of different economic policies be attributed to which school of thought the
economists belong to? To empirically answer to this important question, we have analyzed
the survey responses from a representative sample of Italian economists. There are two main
results. First, the school of thought predicts difference in economists’ opinions on normative
economic issues, even controlling for individual, group or community characteristics, spa-
tial and knowledge heterogeneity, and political orientation. Results are robust to a number
of different econometric specifications. Second, grouping different schools of thought into
broader categories (i.e. Mainstream versus Heterodox) reduces substantially their explicative
power. These group definitions have a significant role in explaining disagreement only when
individual opinions are very polarized.
This paper is a novel contribution to the literature on the determinants of economists’
disagreement, a field of research where the role of the school of thought - strangely as it might
seem - has never been addressed. Our analysis is the first one to provide robust evidence
that the school of thought needs to be included among these determinants as to explain
economists’ opinions.
Our paper could also be viewed as the empirical validation of the large and long-standing
literature on the importance of schools of thought for economic thinking. This hypothesis has
never been tested before. In this sense, we believe that our empirical analysis of economists’
opinions nicely complements the analyses of historians of economic thought in investigating
the proclivity of economists to gather together in intellectual communities.

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 (c)Age
(b)Market
(a)Ideology

(17%)

18-40
(2%)

State
Left
(22%)
Marxist/Sraffian/Neo-Marxist
Behavioral
Regulationist

Post-Keynesian
Neoclassical/Mainstream

(32%)

41-50
Evolutionary
Evolutionary Neo-Keynesian

(9%)
Eclectic

(57%)
Regulationist Institutionalist/Neo-Institutionalist
No-school
No-school
Neoclassical/Mainstream
Eclectic Marxist/Sraffian/Neo-Marxist

34
Post-Keynesian
Neo-Keynesian
Marxist/Sraffian/Neo-Marxist
Austrian/Neo-Austrian

(29%)

51-60
Institutionalist/Neo-Institutionalist Post-Keynesian
Austrian/Neo-Austrian

(45%)
Neo-Keynesian
(16%)

Center

Behavioral Institutionalist/Neo-Institutionalist

Mixed Economy
Evolutionary
Eclectic
Regulationist

No-school

Austrian/Neo-Austrian

(19%)

61-70
Neoclassical/Mainstream
(7%)

(38%)
Behavioral

71-
(3%)
(3%)

Right

(12%)

Market
Figure 1: Projecting SofT on (a) Ideology, (b) Market orientation, and (c) Age.
 Figure 2: Mainstream, Outside-mainstream and individual opinions: Regression results

Dumping and unfair competition

Low attraction of FDI
Euro
M vs N-M
EU Commission policy
BCE monetary policy ML vs HJEL
Commodities world prices ML vs N-ML
International political situation
Small firms low technology
Small firms innovation
Low risk propensity of entrepreneurs
Protection of large firms
Causes

Physical infrastructure
Immaterial infrastructure
Low competition
Firms cost of bureaucracy
Credit constraint
North-South divide
Mezzogiorno - crime
Mezzogiorno - infrastructures
Low labor market flexibility
Demography
Low human capital supply
Labor unions behavior
Public debt level
Public debt policy
Low efficiency - Public Administration
Low efficiency - Bureaucracy
More liberalizations
More privatizations
Policy proposals

Increase Public Administration efficiency

Foster SME consortia
Strengthen firm-territory link
Public Investment in strategic sectors
Increase firms' Investments in ITC
Funding academic research
Increase investments in infrastructures
More flexibility in the Labor market
Reduce jobs' precariousness
Reduce Labor Unions power

-3 -2 -1 0 1

Notes: Weighted ordered probit regressions results for categorical variable N-M i , HJELi and N-MLi . The reference
category is always the correspondent definition of mainstream (as in table 5). Controls (the same ones as in tables 3
and 4) are included but coefficients are not shown. We include fixed-effects for the University where the respondent
received her B.A (UNIVERSITY BA). Standard error are robust and clustered at the level of the University where the
respondent is currently employed. Weights are used. More information on the controls and the weights are included in
the text. Relevant point estimates are plotted using black circles (N-M), white circles (HJEL), and gray circles (N-ML).
Horizontal segments depict 95% confidence intervals. Propositions are indicated on the y-axis. We shortened the title
of each proposition for visual reason.

35
A Appendix

This Appendix contains the list of the Causes (Table 6) and of the Policy proposals (Table
7) included in the questionnaire.

Table 6: The 40 Causes

Number Cause

1 Italian international trade specialization

2 Higher international competition in goods and service markets
3 Dumping and unfair international competition
4 Set and quality of exported goods
5 Low attraction of FDI
6 Low firm propensity to internationalization
7 Adoption of the Euro
8 European Commission economic policy
9 BCE monetary policy
10 Primary commodity world price dynamics
11 Difficult international political situation
12 Small firms’ size (more difficult to gaining access to credit)
13 Small firms’ size (more difficult the internationalization activity)
14 Small firms’ size (more difficult the adoption of new technologies)
15 Small firms’ size (more difficult the innovation activity)
16 Ownership structure of Italian firms
17 Role of the family in firm governance
18 Low risk propensity of entrepreneurs
19 Excessive protection of large domestic firms
20 Dynamic of investment in ICT
21 Quantity and quality of infrastructures
22 Quality of immaterial infrastructures (justice, authority, etc.)
23 Low competition level, the existence of barriers to entry
24 Bureaucratic impediments to private entrepreneurship
25 Difficulties to gaining access to credit
26 Persistence of the Italian North-South economic divide
27 Mezzogiorno issue (crime)
28 Mezzogiorno issue (infrastructures)
29 Productivity reduction caused by the labor market reform
30 Low labor market flexibility
31 Wage compression effect of ’concertazione’
32 Demographic dynamics
33 Low human capital demand
34 Low human capital supply
35 Increasing number of immigrant workers
36 Labor Union behavior
37 Public debt level and composition
38 Type of policies adopted to reduce public debt
39 Low efficiency of the Public Administration
40 Low efficiency of the bureaucracy

36
 Table 7: The 18 Policy proposals

Number Policy proposal

1 Proceed with more liberalizations

2 Proceed with more privatizations
3 Increase bureaucracy (Public Administration) efficiency
4 Change trade specialization
5 Improve quality of exported goods
6 Induce internationalization activity by domestic firms
7 Induce firms’ size growth
8 Create small and medium firms consortia
9 Create and strengthen firm-territory link
10 Increase public investment in strategic sectors
11 Increase firms’ investment in ICT
12 Funding private research
13 Funding public research
14 Funding academic research
15 Increase investments in physical infrastructures
16 Make the labor market more flexible
17 Reduce precarious jobs
18 Reduce Labor Union power

37