Expertise and institutional design in economic committees

In this paper, I consider the problem of selecting and justifying a list of principles of expertise as part of a methodology of expert judgment in economics. I argue that a methodology of expertise, trying to list and justify a number of principles of expertise, is in need of a theoretical background against which to select, evaluate, and weight each of the principles. I explain by means of case studies why problems arise for lack of such background, using the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee and the Council of Economic Advisors as examples. I then make a proposal for a categorization in ‘types of committees’ and ‘types of expertise,’ and use it to evaluate some of the principles of expertise that have been previously suggested in the philosophical and economic literatures.