TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Grewenig, Elisabeth
AU  - Gruendler, Klaus
AU  - Lergetporer, Philipp
AU  - Potrafke, Niklas
AU  - Werner, Katharina
AU  - Zeidler, Helen
        TI  - Expertise and Prediction Accuracy
        PY  - 2026/Mar/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 18453
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp18453
        AB  - 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.
        KW  - expert forecasts
KW  - lay predictions
KW  - belief formation
KW  - expertise gap
KW  - policy support
KW  - behavioral experiments
        ER  -