By the time British citizens went to the polls on June 23 to decide on their country ’ s continued membership in the European Union , there had been no shortage of advice in favor of remaining . Foreign leaders and moral authorities had voiced unambiguous concern about the consequences of an exit , and economists had overwhelmingly warned that leaving the EU would entail significant economic costs . Yet the warnings were ignored . A prereferendum YouGov opinion poll tells why : “ Leave ” voters had no trust whatsoever in the advice - givers . They did not want their judgment to rely on politicians , academics , journalists , international organizations , or think tanks . As one of the Leave campaign ’ s leaders , Justice Secretary Michael Gove , who is now seeking to succeed David Cameron as prime minister , bluntly put it : “ People in this country have had enough of experts . ” It is tempting to dismiss this attitude as a triumph of passion over rationality . Yet the pattern seen in the U . K . is oddly familiar : In the United States , Republican voters disregarded the pundits and nominated Donald Trump as their party ’ s presidential candidate ; in France , Marine Le Pen , the leader of the far - right National Front , elicits little sympathy among experts , but has strong popular support . Everywhere , a significant number of citizens have become hostile to the cognoscenti . Why this angry attitude toward the bearers of knowledge and expertise ? The first explanation is that many voters attach little value to the opinions of those who failed to warn them about the risk of a financial crisis in 2008 . Queen Elizabeth II spoke for many when , on a visit to the London School of Economics in the autumn of 2008 , she asked why no one saw it coming . Furthermore , the suspicion that economists have been captured by the financial industry , expressed in the 2010 movie Inside Job , has not been dispelled . Ordinary people feel angry about what they regard as a betrayal by the intellectuals . Most economists , let alone specialists in other disciplines , regard such accusations as unfair , because only a few of them devoted themselves to scrutinizing financial developments ; yet their credibility has been seriously dented . Because no one pled guilty for the suffering that followed the crisis , the guilt has become collective . The second explanation has to do with the policies advocated by the cognoscenti . Experts are accused of being biased , not necessarily because they are captured by special interests , but because , as a profession , they support the mobility of labor across borders , trade openness , and globalization more generally . There is some substance in this argument : Although not all economists , and certainly not all social scientists , advocate international integration , they are undoubtedly more inclined toward highlighting its benefits than the average citizen is . This points to the third and most convincing explanation : While experts emphasize the overall benefits of openness , they tend to disregard or minimize its effects on particular professions or communities . They regard immigration -- to which Cameron attributed the “ leave ” campaign ’ s victory -- as a net benefit for the economy ; but they fail to pay attention to what it implies for workers who experience downward wage pressure or for communities struggling with a scarcity of affordable housing , crowded schools and an overwhelmed health system . In other words , they are guilty of indifference . This criticism is largely correct . As Ravi Kanbur of Cornell University pointed out long ago , economists ( and policymakers ) tend to look at issues in the aggregate , to take a medium - term perspective and to assume that markets work well enough to absorb a large part of adverse shocks . Their perspective clashes with that of people who care more about distributional issues , have different ( often shorter ) time horizons and are wary of monopolistic behavior . If economists and other experts want to regain their fellow citizens ’ trust , they should not be deaf to these concerns . They should first be humble and avoid lecturing . They should base their policy views on the available evidence , rather than on preconceptions . And they should change their minds if the data do not confirm their beliefs . This largely corresponds to what researchers actually do ; but when speaking to the public , experts tend to oversimplify their own views . For economists , humility also implies listening to people from other disciplines . On immigration , they should hear what sociologists , political scientists or psychologists have to say about what coexistence in multicultural communities may entail . Second , experts should be more granular in their approach . They typically should examine policies ’ impact not only on aggregate gross domestic product in the medium term , but also on how policies ’ effects are distributed over time , across space , and among social categories . A policy decision can be positive in the aggregate but severely harmful to some groups -- which is frequently the case with liberalization measures . Third , economists should move beyond the ( generally correct ) observation that such distributional effects can be addressed through taxation and transfers , and work out how exactly that should happen . Yes , if a policy decision leads to aggregate gains , losers can in principle be compensated . But this is easier said than done . In practice , it is often hard to identify the losers and to find the right instrument to support them . To argue that problems can be solved without examining how and under what conditions is sheer intellectual laziness . To tell people who have been hurt that they could have been spared the pain does not give them any less reason to complain ; it just fuels resentment of technocratic experts . Because growing public distrust of the cognoscenti provides fertile ground to demagogues , it poses a threat to democracy . Academics and policymakers may be tempted to respond by dismissing what looks like a celebration of ignorance and retreating into ivory towers . But this would not improve matters . And there is no need to surrender . What is needed is more honesty , more humility , more granular analysis and more refined prescriptions . By Jean Pisani - FerryJean Pisani - Ferry is a professor at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin , and currently serves as commissioner - general of France Strategie , a policy advisory institution in Paris . -- Ed . ( Project Syndicate ) <ⓒ KoreaHerald ( www . koreaherald . com ) 무단 전재 및 재 배포 금지 >