I should perhaps add that in Denmark there's an academic economic elite of researchers (with titles as "wise men", no kidding) that get a lot of attention from the press, and since the set of people elected to the parliament in many cases have a Master's degree in economic or state science where these people teach, their advice is taken really seriously.

For instance, the current government which is nominally social-democratic did some pretty serious cuts to various tax-funded welfare programmes, on the advice of the wise men, to the dismay of their voters.