Another reason might be marketing. Many of the people who explain economics to the general public, such as the bloggers at Marginal Revolution or the creators of the EconTalk podcast, have libertarian leanings. A number of conservative think tanks, such as the Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute, employ university-trained economists to promote free-market policies to the public. In recent years, this libertarian influence has been balanced out by more left-leaning voices -- the New York Times’ Paul Krugman, the University of California-Berkeley’s Brad DeLong, and think tanks like the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, Center for Economic and Policy Research and Economic Policy Institute. But libertarians’ head start in marketing -- which goes back all the way to Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek in the mid-20th century -- will take a while to overcome.

Eventually, though, the public will realize that economists are not the knee-jerk free-marketers that many imagine.  Even on international trade, the elite consensus shows a few signs of fraying at the edges. Soon we may enter an age when economists call on the government to fix the economy, and the average American is the one who needs convincing.

Noah Smith is an assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University.

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