Beliefs about Economics and Economic Policies: How Different Are Prospective Economists and Teachers at the Beginning of Their Studies?

We present results from a survey of 1,399 first-year university students of economics and of courses designed for prospective teachers in Germany. We find strong self-selection effects in terms of students’ interests, their views about economics as a discipline and selected economic policy proposal: Students in political and social science education are systematically more sceptical of free-market policies. Regression analysis further suggests that economics and economics education students consistently place lesser emphasis on fairness in their acceptance judgments about policy proposals. Comparison with previous surveys suggest that indoctrination effects at university level may be stronger for economists than for teachers. JEL Codes: A13, A20, A21, F5, H0