Expert Failure
Cambridge Studies in Economics, Choice, and Society Series

The humble idea that experts are ordinary human beings leads to surprising conclusions about how to get the best possible expert advice. All too often, experts have monopoly power because of licensing restrictions or because they are government bureaucrats protected from both competition and the consequences of their decisions. This book argues that, in the market for expert opinion, we need real competition in which rival experts may have different opinions and new experts are free to enter. But the idea of breaking up expert monopolies has far-reaching implications for public administration, forensic science, research science, economics, America's military-industrial complex, and all domains of expert knowledge. Roger Koppl develops a theory of experts and expert failure, and uses a wide range of examples - from forensic science to fashion - to explain the applications of his theory, including state regulation of economic activity.

1. Introduction; Part I. Nature and History of the Problem: 2. Is there a literature on experts?; 3. Two historical episodes in the problem of experts; 4. Recurrent themes in the theory of experts; Part II. Foundations of the Theory of Experts: 5. Notes on some economic terms and ideas; 6. The division of knowledge through Mandeville; 7. The division of Knowledge after Mandeville; 8. The supply and demand for expert opinion; 9. Experts and their ecology; Part III. Expert Failure: 10. Expert failure and market structure; 11. Further sources of expert failure; 12. Expert failure in the entangled deep state.

Roger Koppl is Professor of Finance in the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University and a faculty fellow in the University's Forensic and National Security Sciences Institute. His work has been featured in The Atlantic, Forbes, and The Washington Post.