Unfortunately, according to one group of experts, neither man has a very good economic plan. The Economist has polled 91 academic economists who specialise in public policy. (We chose economists who had recently been referees for the American Economic Review, one of the profession’s flagship journals.) Of these, 54 responded. When asked to mark the Gore and Bush economic plans as though they were students’ term papers, the academic experts gave both a mediocre grade. On average, Mr Gore scraped a B-minus, while Mr Bush managed only a straight C. 

Though Mr Gore did better, neither achieved a grade with which any self-respecting student would be happy. Both candidates got an A from fewer than 10% of the respondents (see chart). Far more professors reckoned the would-be presidents had flunked their economic plans. Over a quarter of the professors reckoned Mr Bush’s plans merited either a D (unsatisfactory) or an F (outright fail). Mr Gore disappointed almost one in seven of his teachers. 

Nor can the candidates take comfort in the hope that this group of economists were particularly tough markers. President Clinton scored a B-plus for his economic record (with almost 40% of the academics giving him a straight A). But, lest the outgoing president get too smug, it is worth noting that only 15% of our economists gave him most of the credit for America’s current prosperity. Around 60% said that Alan Greenspan was mainly responsible for today’s boom. Nobody thought the Republican Congress deserved most credit. (One economist, in fact, thought that deadlock between the Congress and Mr Clinton was as important as Mr Greenspan to the economy’s success.)

The two plans differ a lot, though not as much as the candidates may claim. Mr Bush wants big across-the-board tax cuts and aims to introduce individual accounts as part of a reform of Social Security. Mr Gore wants smaller, more targeted tax cuts and plans in effect to use general government revenue to shore up Social Security. Given this contrast, it is surprising that both plans were rated so poorly. The economists are evidently unmoved by the effort both sides have put into touting the respectability of their plans. The Gore campaign never ceases to boast how it is continuing the prudent strategies of the Clinton years. In a recent Bush advertisement, 300 (presumably Republican) economists, including six Nobel laureates, endorsed the Texan’s plan.

Why did our smaller (but less partisan) group disagree? One reason was that our economists took issue with the candidates’ priorities. Only 19% thought, as Mr Bush appears to, that tax cuts offered the best use of the projected fiscal surplus. A majority of the academics agreed with Mr Greenspan, and wanted to use the projected surpluses for debt reduction. “I think we should be cautious about whether there really will be a fiscal surplus to spend,” said one.

Mr Gore’s plan follows this idea more closely than Mr Bush’s (thus explaining his edge among the boffins in our poll). Nonetheless, the professors are scathing about new spending—the other important plank of the Gore platform. Less than 6% think that new spending should be a top priority for the use of fiscal surpluses. Some of those who supported Mr Bush’s tax cuts do so on a tactical basis, as a way to avoid new spending: Mr Bush’s tax cuts, argued one professor, were “a way to control the growth of new, probably useless, spending.”

The academics were also much more willing than the presidential candidates to bite the bullet on Social-Security reform. Almost two in five respondents reckoned that means-testing benefits was a top priority for saving Social Security. Another 31% favoured raising the retirement age. Less than 8% saw shoring up Social Security with money from the general budget as a priority (which is, in effect, the Gore strategy). Mr Bush’s approach—creating individual accounts—was, in contrast, seen as a top priority by a quarter of respondents. 

A further reason why the academics rate both the candidates poorly is that they reckon their plans (for different reasons) make for mediocre fiscal policy. Economic textbooks tend to analyse tax policies on three criteria: economic efficiency, equity and transparency. According to our economists, Mr Bush’s tax plans do much better than Mr Gore’s at promoting economic efficiency. Over 60% of respondents gave him either an A or B in that category, compared with only 40% for Mr Gore.

But Mr Bush does appallingly in the equity category. Half the respondents gave him either a D or an F for the fairness of his plan, while Mr Gore scored A or B from 76% of the academics. Moreover, according to the professionals neither candidate will do much for the transparency of the tax code: both Messrs Bush and Gore scored a mediocre C, on average, on that criterion. 

Though Mr Gore scores highly for fairness, the experts are suspicious about many of the claims of the Gore campaign. Take the use of tax credits to encourage poorer Americans to save. Only 24% of the academics think that tax credits are an effective way to increase private saving. Similarly, 48% are unconvinced that the tax code is an appropriate instrument of social policy (which is how Mr Gore plans to use it, with his pint-sized credits to encourage everything from child-care to energy conservation). 

They are equally unconvinced of some of Mr Bush’s priorities. Only 39% of the academics, for instance, think that the estate tax should be repealed. But, surprisingly, 69% of the respondents reckoned that the “marriage tax” penalty should go: this is about as close as the group came to a consensus on anything. Even more surprising, perhaps, many of the economists were much more radical than either presidential candidate: just over half thought America should move away from today’s system of income taxes to a system based on consumption taxes. 

Like all polls, ours must be treated with caution. It is worth noting that, for all their harsh marking, more than 70% of the respondents would jump at the chance of a policy job in Washington (with far more willing to work for Mr Gore than for Mr Bush). However mediocre the boss, the prospect of working on his team still has its allure.