Strange beast, the economist. Some wish him one-armed, to keep him from always saying "on the other hand". But he is also rumoured to have an invisible hand. Some swear that the first economist was Christopher Columbus: when he left to discover America, he didn't know where he was going; when he got there he didn't know where he was. And all of it on a government grant.

Economists are different, alright. But what did you expect? They are practitioners of the dismal science, the only science where two people can get a Nobel prize for saying opposing things, like Myrdal and Hayek did.

But how different are they really? Different enough, for sure, to merit a study by a renowned Swiss economist, Gebhard Kirchgaessner. Just released as a CESifo Working Paper, his ruminations on the matter make good reading, and shed some light on what sets his kind apart from the rest of humanity.

As he observes, "there is a gap in our societies between the economic elite and the other elites, especially the cultural one." Economists are in some senses more conservative. To illustrate this, he examines a few prestigious German and Swiss newspapers. The cultural part, he finds, is more in favour of social democratic parties or —at least— of the left wings of the non-socialist parties, while the journalists writing in the economic part are almost always strongly opposed to socialist ideas. This holds equally for newspapers located clearly on the right of the political spectrum as for those somewhere left of the median. And he suspects the same holds for other European papers, such as Le Monde.

This gap might be more significant in Europe than in the U.S., he thinks, but "on the other hand" (that phrase again) academic economists, especially public choice scholars, as regards their political identification, are today significantly to the right of the general public, which holds for the U.S. as well.

But what makes them different? What is so particular in economic theory that causes different convictions in economists compared to the rest of the world? It is an ingrained quality that pushes certain people to study economics, or does indoctrination —i.e. the study of the discipline— endow them with the ways of thinking that make them different?

To find the answer, Kirchgaessner reviewed some experimental evidence. The fact that economists are "drilled in the problems of all economic systems and in the methods by which a price system solves these problems," as G. Stigler said back in 1959, turns them more conservative and, somewhere along the line, a bit more self-centred as well. That would indicate a strong role for indoctrination. But some later research —such as that conducted by Bruno Frey and Stephan Maier— appeared to find evidence that contradicted this, finding that there were some innate characteristics in economics students that governed their behaviour, such as a certain degree of selfishness. That would speak for self-selection. While the jury is still out on this one, it is a fact that economists place much store by the workings of mechanisms steered by external incentives, such as the market system.

In this respect, the difference with the normal folk is clear: the general public does not have the same strong belief in the workings of the market system as the economists do. Or, for that matter, in the purportedly positive effects of certain measures that economists support. One case in point is the referendum by which the Swiss people rejected a proposal —supported by nearly all economists in Switzerland— to join the European Economic Area in 1992.

But why would economists think that behaviour is driven mainly by external incentives, disregarding internal ones such as intrinsic motivation or commitment? During their education, economists are nearly exclusively trained to take external incentives into account, and even when the economic model of behaviour is applied to non-market situations, their focus is on the effects of external incentives. Thus, as Kirchgaessner says, "it is hardly astonishing that those who are trained over several years in this thinking are more in favour of market solutions than the rest of the population, as the market system is nearly totally steered by external incentives."

Still, the gulch between economists and public at large is at times enormous. Regarding the market mechanism, economists assert that because it treats all people equally, regardless of their gender, age, race or religion, it offers all citizens the same chances, and it offers in most dimensions more chances than any other social co-ordination mechanism. Thus, it fulfills best something that nearly everybody underwrites: the principle that all individuals should have equal chances in a society. But that is precisely what non-economists say a market system does not accomplish: individual chances depend on the income of the individuals; those with higher incomes have better chances.

So, it is obvious that the study of economics changes the perceptions individuals have of the market mechanism. But that is equally true of those who study natural sciences: their perceptions of the natural world change as well.

Still, Kirchgaessner warns his colleagues, external incentives are not sufficient to explain quite a lot of socially important behaviour and that altruism, intrinsic motivation, commitment and reciprocity also play an important role in human behaviour.

Economists, he concludes, will remain different, perhaps somewhat more conservative than the rest. But if they heed his advice, they will be able to communicate better with the other elites, and with the world at large.

• Other CESifo Working Papers dealing with economists
• Other CESifo Working Papers by Gebhard Kirchgaessner
• Other CESifo Working Papers by Bruno Frey

Note: This text is the responsibility of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of either the CESifo Working Paper author(s) cited or the CESifo Group Munich.