%0 Report
        %A Grewenig, Elisabeth
%A Gruendler, Klaus
%A Lergetporer, Philipp
%A Potrafke, Niklas
%A Werner, Katharina
%A Zeidler, Helen
        %T Expertise and Prediction Accuracy
        %D 2026
        %8 2026 Mar
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 18453
        %U https://www.iza.org/publications/dp18453
        %X Public support for policy interventions depends on citizens’ beliefs about their likely effects. We examine how individuals form such beliefs by studying their predictions of experimental outcomes in a policy-relevant setting, and why their predictions differ from expert benchmarks. We elicit forecasts from 127 professional economists and a representative sample of 6,200 German households about a large-scale behavioral experiment on education policy (N = 3, 133). Nonexperts predict both average outcomes and treatment effects far less accurately than experts. Prediction accuracy improves with calibrated priors, self-reported effort, and the use of structured reasoning, but remains well below expert levels. We show that scalable design features, including the provision of well-calibrated numerical anchors and monetary incentives to rise effort, improve non-expert predictions, with effects comparable in magnitude to tertiary education or structured reasoning. Our findings have important implications for bridging the ‘expertise gap’ in public discourse.
        %K expert forecasts
%K lay predictions
%K belief formation
%K expertise gap
%K policy support
%K behavioral experiments