Are Economists Breaking for Romney?

Arguably the central issue of the 2012 election cycle is the question of which candidate will end up being a superior choice for the country's economic future.

So it's odd that despite the avalanche of data that both sides frequently will use to pummel each other, very few people have tried surveying professional economists to hear their take on the subject. This omission is especially notable, given that in the 2008 election cycle, economists broke for Obama by the astonishing margin of 66%. Given the media's general mildly leftward bias, you would think they would want to return to a group that relevant and with that sort of record.

However, that is the opposite of what's happened. Why? Because economists may actually be breaking the other way this election cycle. One sees this possibility by comparing two groups - the newly formed "Economists for Romney" and their original counterparts, "Economists for Obama."

First, consider the Economists for Romney website. No less than 649 economists agree with Romney's plan, a figure which includes 6 Nobel Laureates, and announced just last week that it has representatives in all 50 states. Nor are these economists concentrated in schools that lefty writers can scoff at - no less than 9 of the economists on the list come from Harvard alone, 8 from Stanford and one each from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton. Faced with this cavalcade of support, Leftists have resorted to one or two responses - they either complain about the priorities of economists generally, or try to attack these economists in particular. Matt Yglesias at Slate provides a good example of the former reaction:

Lots of economists believe that low marginal tax rates are extremely important to human flourishing, and even though there's a lot that's unclear in the 2012 campaign it's perfectly obvious that a Romney administration will deliver lower marginal tax rates than an Obama administration. So it's no surprise to see that there are lots of Economists for Romney out with a hot new website.[...]

Romney is definitely the candidate of lower tax rates, most likely the candidate of lower aggregate federal spending, definitely the candidate who's more enthusiastic about cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits, and unquestionably the candidate whose approach to health care won't be marred by concern for the poor, and the proponent of an energy policy that's indifferent to pollution or climate change. Whether all things considered that makes him the better candidate is for the people to decide.

While Pavlina Tcherneva of Naked Capitalism provides a good example of the latter:

Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney boasts support from the scientific community for his supply-side trickle-down economic proposal. It is outlined here, along with the list of economists endorsing the plan.

Several Nobel Prize winners grace the top of the list. Here is a quick look at some of these luminaries and their contributions to some of the most pressing problems of our time.[...]

Gary Becker is the economist who developed a pricing model for kidneys and other human organs. Since efficient markets solve all problems—economic or social—monetizing organ donation, in this economist’s view, makes perfect sense. He is better known for his theory on human capital investment. One extension of this work deals with the question of child-rearing. According to Becker, parents choose to have children because they fear that their retirement portfolios are inadequate to support them in their old age…hence, the kids. Some parents opt to have a few “high-quality kids”, while others – many “low quality kids”, depending on the family’s time preference. I am not joking and these are not my words; they are his. This theory has given birth to the “rotten-kid theorem”, which says that because of these financial incentives, parents are “altruistic” even (even?!) towards their spoiled-rotten and selfish kids, because they are essentially trying to maximize their own return. In sum, according to Becker, all social, economic, environmental, health, and other problems can be solved if all human activity is monetized and financial incentives are ‘properly aligned’.

However, beyond this anti-scientific assault on unfriendly academics, there appears to be little for Obama supporters to say. Why? Because the website for "economists for Obama" is now defunct. Not only that, but its last post is almost poetic in its irony:

I suppose I might change my mind, but after watching the President give in to the Boehner-McConnell blackmail axis, I don't imagine I'll be spending much of my time advocating his re-election. Assuming he's the Democratic nominee, which I do, I'll vote for Obama, because the alternative will still--somehow--be worse. But I really can't see how, in good conscience, I could defend the economic policies of a guy who has signed on to fiscal contraction in the midst of a major downturn. And that's leaving aside the President's apparent lack of understanding of the importance of bargaining from strength. So much for all that poker expertise he's supposed to have.

So even the economists who signed onto support Obama apparently believe he's inadequate to the job and may only support him as a lesser of two evils calculation. With that case compared with Romney's, it's not difficult to see how Republicans might be winning more of the professional economist vote in 2012.