A national survey poll found that two-thirds of Americans polled could not name all three branches of the United States government nor a single Supreme Court justice. Another poll found that 91 percent of the persons polled could not name the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. When responders were asked if they could name any of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, a majority could only name free speech and only 40 percent knew that there were 100 senators in the U.S. Congress.
Hear what and how the economist thinks:
When the results of such polls are cited, usually people become shocked that their fellow citizens seem to know so little. Sometimes the people who do know the answers to the questions claim that their fellow citizens are just ignorant. But there is a big difference between ignorance and rational ignorance. Ignorance has the connotation of a person being unable to learn something; rational ignorance does not. It is important to realize that persons who are capable of knowing something may choose not to know it.
My guess is that if we asked college professors a few basic questions on economics and politics, many of them would have a hard time giving a correct answer. This is not because they are incapable of learning about what they don’t know; instead, it is more likely that they have quickly calculated that it is not worth their knowing.
Consider the following questions:
1. What was the dollar amount of federal government expenditures last year?
2. Who is the current chair of the House Appropriations Committee?
3. What percentage of total income is earned by the top 10 percent of income earners in the country?
4. What percentage of federal income taxes is paid by the top 10 percent of income earners?
5. How many members of the House of Representatives come from your state?
6. What is the current dollar amount of the national debt and how much has the debt increased (in billions of dollars) in the last five years?
7. How did either of the two U.S. senators from your state vote on the last agricultural bill that came before Congress?
There are probably millions of people who could know the answers to these questions, but don’t. In other words, it is not a matter of their not having the ability to find the answers to these questions; it is a matter of their choosing not to find the answers to these questions. And so we need to ask the question: Why would they choose to not find the answers to these questions? Instead of answering the question directly, consider two settings.
In the first setting, a person is thinking of buying a car. In the second setting, a person is planning to vote in a presidential election. In the first setting, if the person doesn’t find out about the car she is thinking of buying, and something is wrong with the car, then she is going to have to suffer the consequences in terms of lost time and money.
Knowing this, she will likely take the time to learn about the car she is thinking of buying. In the second case, if she doesn’t know much about whom she votes for, the election is likely to turn out the same way than if she had known a lot about whom she votes for. Economists would then expect that individuals would be more careful to acquire the necessary information to buy a car than to vote in a presidential election.
Yes, who is president of the United States is more important than the type of car an individual buys, but it doesn’t follow that individuals will invest more time, energy, and money in deciding for whom they will vote than in deciding which car to purchase.

Questions:
1. In which of the two settings would a voter be more likely to know the details of a candidate’s position on fiscal and monetary policy: the setting in which he is one of 100 voters or the setting in which he is one of one million voters? Explain your answer.
2. How many of the seven questions we identified earlier did you know the answers to? If you did not know the answers to any of the questions, do you think you are likely to try to find the answer to the question(s)? Why or why not?