hanson.gmu.edu/futarchy.html

Indeed, I believe I agreed with you on that.

The only policies that could potentially be impacted are ones that are objectively wrong – as we can come up with a set of prior values that justify most policies, the result of any economics party will be the result of their prior value judgments rather than an indication of what the “economics community” might feel.

I’d like to see an economics party get into parliament saying that they would lift the tax on petrol and cut the tax on tobacco in order to put them at the right level to correct for externalities 😉

My instinct is that this system would not produce results substantially different from the status quo. It might cut a few of the completely ridiculous boondoggles, but those aren’t normally very expensive to begin with.

Furthermore, in terms of New Zealand economic policy it is unlikely that enough New Zealand economists agree on specific changes for such a party to change the status quo.

In a sense, Scott Adams hope for an economics party probably rest on a wish that the political process was more transparent – the question then is, is policy in New Zealand transparent enough? Ultimately, I want a party that doesn’t have wildly pragmatic policies which are based on economic illiteracy – however I suspect this will always be a pipe dream and never reality.

It does leave the question of what type of economics would be followed though. A focus on the social costs of inequality or public spending as an investment could lead to a party further left than labour. On the other hand an efficiency rather than equity centred approach including acceptance of traditional economic assumptions such as consumer rationality would lead to a flat tax rate and other very right wing policies. It’s interesting to note that there are often doctors of economics on both sides of many debates including poverty, privatization, international trade, and labour markets.

Unless one particular type of economist or economic school of thought gained ascendency I can imagine an economics party having a fascinating mixed bag of policies from across the political spectrum. Applications of recent research into behavioural economics, for instance (e.g. the libertarian paternalism of Richard Thaler), would certainly be fun to implement!