English
Valencià
Seminario Theory-Experimental
Instituto de Análisis Económico (CSIC) and Barcelona Graduate School of Economics
9-Mar-2020
Seminar 1 – 14:30
Some popular views about the workings of the economy are completely at odds with current empirical evidence and congruent theoretical explanations and therefore can be qualified as misconceptions. One consequence is that such beliefs lead to support for harmful policies. Dual process thinking and cognitive biases may contribute to explaining why misconceptions persist even when scientific information is provided to people. We conduct experiments to investigate, for the first time, whether presenting information in a refutational way affects people’s beliefs about an important socio-economic issue on which expert consensus is strong, the harmful effects of rent controls. We find that the refutational message induces a substantial belief change in the direction of expert knowledge. In addition, the persuasiveness of the message varies with the experimental setting, with individual cognitive traits, and with whether team discussion among participants is allowed.