This would increase greatly the chances of Mackay’s “madness of crowds”. Finally, let’s try an interior solution – say 1,000 people each spending 10 hours. This is large enough a number to gather most of the benefits of diversity, but small enough to harvest the benefits of deliberation. It would blend expert and non-expert opinion in a way which would allow collective deliberation. This is the “wisdom of crowds” solution. Figure 2 plots the relationship between insight and the numbers of people providing information in a group, in stylised terms. You might call it the “Insight Curve”. The curve (shown in dotted lines) results from combining the effects of a downward-sloping “deliberation” curve and an upward-sloping “diversity” curve. Consistent with the evidence, both exhibit diminishing returns. The inverted U-shaped “Insight Curve” identifies the optimal number of people to draw on to inform a complex decision. The two corner solutions – the “Oracle” (single person) and the “Madness of Crowds” (population) – involve very different trade-offs between diversity and deliberation. A single source of information gives you plenty of time for deliberation – a hermit-like 10,000 hours. But it leaves you short of diversity of thought. A population-wide pool of information gives us as much diversity as you could ever wish. But it leaves you long fast-thinkers, short slow-thinkers and vulnerable to irrationality. 15  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  15  Both are inferior to an intermediate solution – the “Wisdom of Crowds” solution.
These go by the name econoME. As the name suggests, and like our recent public communications efforts, these materials describe the economy and finance in terms which are personal and relatable to young people’s lives. Why does the economy and finance matter to me? And how do my decisions in turn affect the economy? We set ourselves a target of reaching 400 state schools with econoME during the course of this year. So far since launch in April, over 1,000 schools have downloaded the materials, conceivably covering around 90,000 pupils. 52  This demonstrates the potential pent-up demand for school materials on economic and  financial issues. The Bank’s aim is to reach close to 1,500 schools by mid-2020. We are currently considering where next to take our education initiatives. A promising avenue would be a younger age range, say 7-11 year olds. This will require different materials and possibly a different approach. A more challenging market still would be adults, perhaps linked to existing initiatives to boost  50 51 52  Haldane (2018a) and Barnes et al (2017). ING-Economics Network Survey of the Public’s Understanding of Economics (2017). Assuming 30 students per class and 3 classes per school. 22  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  22  economic and financial literacy in the public at large. The scale of the public understanding deficit means central bank efforts can only be part of the solution but, as public institutions, an important part.