17  Young people are particularly reliant on social  media, with 28% of 18-24 year olds saying it is their main source of news, putting it ahead of television (Chart 1). Media has always been open to the criticism that it tells people what they want to hear rather than 18  the difficult truth . But the selection and delivery of news by algorithms which guess users’ preferences based on content they have previously read and liked would seem to dramatically increase the risk of living one’s life in an informational echo chamber. 14  Estimate by Harvard School of Public Health cited in Nichols, Thomas (2017), The Death of Expertise, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 15 Popper, Karl (1963) Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, London: Routledge. 16 There have been several recent examples where the release of data and attempts to replicate results has fostered healthy debate. See for example Reinhoff and Rogoff (Growth in the Time of Debt, NBER Working Paper No. 15639) and Thomas Herndon, Michael Ash and Robert Pollin (Does high public debt consistently stifle economic growth? A critique of Reinhart and Rogoff, Cambridge J Econ (2014) 38 (2): 257-279), and Picketty (Capital in the 21st Century, translated by Arthur Goldhammer, Harvard University Press) and Giles (‘Data problems with Capital in the 21st Century. See https://www.ft.com/content/9bb07a8f-11bc-366b-98bb-fb2d450f1189). 17 Newman, N., Fletcher, R., Levy, D.A., Nielsen, R.K. (2016) Reuters Institute digital news report 2016, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

10 See for example, Grilli, Masciandaro, and Tabellini (See “Political and Monetary Institutions and Public Finance Policies in the Industrial Countries”, Economic Policy, 1991), Cukierman, Webb, and Neyapti (1992), Alesina and Summers (“Central Bank Independence and Macroeconomic Performance: Some Comparative Evidence”, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 1993), Cukierman, Miller, and Neyapti (“Central Bank Reform, Liberalization and Inflation in Transition Economies - An International Perspective”, Journal of Monetary Economics 2002) and Dincer and Eichengreen (“Central Bank Transparency and Independence: Updates and New Measures”, International Journal of Central Banking, 2014). 11 IMF, “The Functions and Impact of Fiscal Councils,” Paper to the IMF Board, 16 July 2013. 12 Besley, T and Hennessy, P. (2009) The Global Financial Crisis – Why Didn’t Anybody Notice?, British Academy 13 In a recent speech, my colleague Andy Haldane also argues that economics needs to draw more heavily on approaches and models used in other disciplines. See Haldane, A The Dappled World Speech at the GLS Shackle Biennial Memorial Lecture 4  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  4  Another catastrophic example is South African President Thabo Mbeki’s rejection of consensus expert opinion on the treatment of HIV/AIDS in favour of the views of a professor at the University of California who argued it was caused by malnutrition rather than a virus. Mbeki’s refusal to believe and fund mainstream treatments for HIV resulted in 300,000 lives lost and the birth of 35,000 HIV positive children whose infections could have been avoided.