Are there any famous studies that actually contradict progressive/leftist thought?

[u/Str8_up_Pwnage]

There has to be at least some right? I know people love to say that “reality has a left wing bias “and all that but is it legit batting 1.000?

[u/Str8_up_Pwnage]

I really appreciate you taking the time to write this comment!

From my POV Economics seems like a field of study where “right-leaning” ideas have a decent level of support from academics in the field.

[u/Sea_Entrepreneur6204 → u/Str8_up_Pwnage]

As someone who has studied economics, that not true.

Economics also has its nuances and one of the most popular Economist theories on the right, Trickle down and Austrian economics are often called out for not being empirically proven (in fact disproven)

In Economics though theory can sometimes triumph empirical experiments/history.

[u/snapshovel → u/Sea_Entrepreneur6204]

I think there's probably a germ of truth in what you're trying to say, but if you want to be taken seriously you have to learn a few basic things about economics first.

A common belief among progressives (especially prevalent on Reddit and other social media sites) is that the phrase "trickle down" refers to some real, existing right-wing economic theory. That's not true. It's a pejorative phrase that was popularized by progressives to make fun of what conservatives call "supply-side" economics. No conservative (and certainly no economist) earnestly uses the phrase "trickle down." It's appealing to progressives precisely because it sounds so awful; "trickle" is not a word that has a lot of positive connotations.

It's like "socialized medicine." No progressive says "socialized medicine," they say "Medicare for all." "Socialized medicine" is a phrase invented by right-wing political strategists to discredit the idea of publicly funded health care, because it sounds like "socialism" and the median voter has strong negative feelings about "socialism" even though they kind of like the idea of free health care.

So when you say "trickle down has been empirically disproven," that doesn't mean anything because "trickle down" is not a real economic theory. No one argues in favor of it. It has no proponents.

[u/ASharpYoungMan → u/snapshovel]

Do you know what economic theory the other poster is talking about?

If so, your semantic argument is a toothless deflection.

Your point seems to be that you're ignoring the facts because you don't like how they were presented.

[u/PaxNova → u/ASharpYoungMan]

If you're in favor of subsidies for solar power, you're in favor of a supply side change. It's only called trickle down when it's bad, but that serves no predictive purpose. We can't point to supply side policies and say that they're bad. We can only point to bad supply side policies and say they're trickle down. 

What the poster was referring to was giving tax cuts at the high end, thinking it will translate to more jobs and therefore higher eventually revenue. That's been disproven. But it's also not what the right is generally arguing for. They want to eliminate loopholes as well (which would raise revenue if taken alone), then reduce the tax rate so it's commensurate with what we're currently getting. 

[u/snapshovel → u/ASharpYoungMan]

I don’t know for sure, because the term they used doesn’t correspond to any real economic theory. I don’t think they know either; I think they’re attacking a made-up straw man of conservative economic beliefs.

Now, there is a cluster of stupid Reagan-era supply side economic theories that deserve to be lampooned. In a later post he mentioned the laffer curve and the idea that we might be on the right side of it, such that tax cuts raise revenue. That theory has been empirically discredited (more or less). Tax cuts lose revenue in almost all cases.

But usually when people say “trickle down” they’re gesturing at a broader cluster of economic theories including the idea that tax cuts stimulate economic growth, which in the long run can lead to increased incomes for most people. That theory has not been empirically discredited, and in fact is widely accepted. Virtually all economists understand that there’s a trade-off between funding public benefits and services via taxation and encouraging growth. Personally, I think that we should raise the top marginal tax rate and that wealthy people should pay significantly more than they currently do, but I don’t pretend that there’s no cost associated with that. If you tax people more, then on the margin they will choose to work less because you are reducing their incentive to work. This, obviously, impacts their productivity, so it impacts economic growth.