I’m asking Bryan. “Pessimistic bias” is one of the four biases he finds among people who are ignorant of economics. He also claims that educated people are generally better than the less-educated on economic issues. But in an interview with James Pethokoukis, Matt Ridley says,

You did not ask me why intellectuals are all such pessimists. And my answer is that pessimism gets attention – from funders, from the media, from governments. Also, for reasons I do not fully understand, it sounds wiser than optimism.