Understanding the Role of Experts in Economic Governance of the EU

There has been an ongoing debate in the literature as to what impact expert knowledge has on policy making. This paper examines whether experts working for governments have converged or diverged their views towards those of academics on matters related to the architecture of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). This paper uses the results of an expert survey as baseline and reviews the opinions of experts within government offices on matters related to economic governance. The survey included questions on what would constitute an optimal EMU architecture and on fiscal solidarity. The survey was completed by 348 experts that work for either the government or rather academic institutions / think-tanks. The result reveals several differences between government and academic experts. Based on follow-up interviews with officials in government in two of the four countries, we examine the extent to which government officials have moved closer to the academic expert view or move further away in the past 2.5 years. In so doing, this paper examines whether government officials take on board expert knowledge over time.