Bryan Caplan

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bryan Caplan

Bryan Douglas Caplan (born April 8, 1971 in Northridge , California ) is an American economist . He is Professor in the Department of Economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia and a freelance research fellow at the Cato Institute . He is best known for his theory of irrational voting behavior in democracy, which was introduced to a wider audience with The Myth of the Rational Voter (2007). He is also an advocate of open borders .

Life

Zach Weinersmith, who published a comic with Caplan and was responsible for the drawings there

Caplan received his BA in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1993 . His Ph.D. he graduated from Princeton University in 1997 . Since then he has been a professor at George Mason University. He and his wife Corinna have four children together. He has published three normal books and one non-fiction comic so far. His next book is supposed to be about poverty.

job

Caplan deals with public economics , public choice (sometimes called in German: New Political Economy), behavioral economics , public opinion research , household theory , and the Austrian School . He also made contributions to the theories of the market economy and anarcho-capitalism . Caplan runs an anarcho-capitalism FAQ on his website as well as a museum of communism in which he analyzes communism historically, economically and philosophically and documents its human rights violations and crimes.

The Myth of the Rational Voter

In 2007 Caplan processed important parts of his previous work into the book The Myth of the Rational Voter . In it he uses the concept of rational irrationality , in connection with empirical findings on systematic misjudgments of economic issues that are widespread in the public , to explain policy failure . Based on the results of a survey of 1,510 US citizens and 250 post-graduate economists, Caplan identified four types of systematic misconceptions among economically less educated people:

  • The tendency to underestimate the economic benefits of labor savings ( make-work bias )
  • The tendency to underestimate the economic benefits of interacting with foreigners ( anti-foreign bias )
  • The tendency to overestimate the severity of economic problems and to underestimate past, present and future economic performance ( pessimistic bias )
  • The tendency to underestimate the benefits of the market mechanism ( anti-market bias )

Caplan shows that the economists' views have neither political nor property-preserving reasons. Caplan calculates econometrically that instead a longer or economic education of the average voter significantly reduces the systematic misjudgments. Since the chance of influencing the outcome of the election with one vote is extremely small, and assuming that people have preferences for certain opinions regardless of their truthfulness, suboptimal economic policy decisions result in a democracy. The logic can be summarized in the following inequality:

(Benefit of an economically correct voting decision) × (Probability that your own vote will have a decisive influence on the election result) <(Benefit of the psychologically satisfactory systematic misjudgment maintained by voting)

Other policy areas in which the public opinion systematically deviates from that of experts (e.g. natural sciences) are also negatively affected according to the same logic. Without making concrete suggestions for implementation, Caplan concludes that more decisions should be outsourced from politics, since people as producers and consumers behave more rationally and responsibly than as voters . The inequality looks different for the player in the market than for the election:

(Benefit of an economically correct decision)> (Benefit of acting according to the psychologically satisfactory systematic misjudgment)

reception

The Myth of the Rational Voter was named Best Political Book of the Year by New York Times journalist Nicholas D. Kristof . The Financial Times named it one of the best books of 2007.

Fonts

Books
  • The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies . Princeton University Press, Princeton 2007, ISBN 0-691-12942-8 .
  • Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent Is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think . Basic Books, April 2011. ISBN 0-465-01867-X .
  • The Case against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money . Princeton University Press, January 2018. ISBN 0-691-17465-2
Comic
  • Open borders. The Science and Ethics of Immigration . First Second, October 2019. ISBN 1-250-31696-0
Essays
  • "The Austrian Search for Realistic Foundations." April 1999. Southern Economic Journal 65 (4), 823-838.
  • "Rational Irrationality: A Framework for the Neoclassical-Behavioral Debate." Spring 2000. Eastern Economic Journal 26 (2), 191-211.
  • "When Is Two Better Than One? How Federalism Amplifies and Mitigates Imperfect Political Competition." April 2001. Journal of Public Economics 80 (1), 99-119.
  • "Rational Ignorance versus Rational Irrationality." 2001. Kyklos 54 (1), 3-26. (Editorial)
  • "Has Leviathan Been Bound? A Theory of Imperfectly Constrained Government with Evidence from the States." April 2001. Southern Economic Journal 67 (4), 825-847.
  • "Libertarianism Against Economism: How Economists Misunderstand Voters and Why Libertarians Should Care." Spring 2001. Independent Review 5 (4), 539-563.
  • "Rational Irrationality and the Microfoundations of Political Failure." June 2001. Public Choice 107 (3/4), 311-331.
  • "Probability, Common Sense, and Realism: A Reply to Hülsmann and Block." Summer 2001. Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 4 (2), 69–86.
  • "Standing Tiebout on His Head: Tax Capitalization and the Monopoly Power of Local Governments." July 2001. Public Choice 108 (1/2), 101-122.
  • "What Makes People Think Like Economists? Evidence on Economic Cognition from the Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy." October 2001. Journal of Law and Economics 44 (2), 395-426.
  • "How Does War Shock the Economy?" 2002. Journal of International Money and Finance 21, 145-162.
  • "Systematically Biased Beliefs About Economics: Robust Evidence of Judgmental Anomalies from the Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy." April 2002. Economic Journal 112 (479), 433-458.
  • "Sociotropes, Systematic Bias, and Political Failure: Reflections on the Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy." June 2002. Social Science Quarterly 83 (2), 416-435.
  • "Stigler-Becker versus Myers-Briggs: Why Preference-Based Explanations Are Scientifically Meaningful and Empirically Important." April 2003. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 50 (4), 391-405. (Editorial)
  • "The Logic of Collective Belief." May 2003. Rationality and Society 15 (2), 218-42.
  • "The Idea Trap: The Political Economy of Growth Divergence." June 2003. European Journal of Political Economy 19 (2), 183–203.
  • "Probability and the Synthetic A Priori: A Reply to Block." Autumn 2003. Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 6 (3), 61-7.
  • "Networks, Law, and the Paradox of Cooperation." (with Edward Stringham), December 2003. Review of Austrian Economics 16 (4), 309-26.
  • "Is Socialism Really 'Impossible'?" 2004. Critical Review 16 (1), 33-52.
  • "Do We Underestimate the Benefits of Cultural Competition?" (with Tyler Cowen) May 2004. American Economic Review 94 (2), 402-7.
  • "Mises, Bastiat, Public Opinion, and Public Choice: What's Wrong With Democracy" (with Edward Stringham). January 2005. Review of Political Economy 17 (1), 79-105.
  • "From Friedman to Wittman: The Transformation of Chicago Political Economy." April 2005. Econ Journal Watch 2 (1), 1-21. (Editorial)
  • "Rejoinder to Wittman: True Myths." August 2005. Econ Journal Watch 2 (2), 165-85.
  • "Toward a New Consensus on the Economics of Socialism: Rejoinder to My Critics." 2005. Critical Review 17 (1/2), pp.203-20.
  • "Terrorism: The Relevance of the Rational Choice Model." July 2006. Public Choice 128 (1/2), 91-107.
  • "The Economics of Szasz: Preferences, Constraints, and Mental Illness." August 2006. Rationality and Society 18 (3), 333-66.
  • "How Do Voters Form Positive Economic Beliefs? Evidence from the Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy." September 2006. Public Choice 128 (3/4), 367-81.
  • "Behavioral Economics and Perverse Effects of the Welfare State" (with Scott Beaulier). November 2007. Kyklos 60 (4): 485-507.
  • "Mises' Democracy-Dictatorship Equivalence Theorem." March 2008. Review of Austrian Economics 21 (1), 45–59.
  • "Privatizing the Adjudication of Disputes" (with Edward Stringham). 2008. Theoretical Inquiries in Law 9 (2): 503-528.
  • "Reply to My Critics." 2008. Critical Review 20 (3), 377-413.
  • "Majorities Against Utility: Implications of the Failure of the Miracle of Aggregation." Winter 2009. Social Philosophy and Policy 26 (1), 198-211.
  • "The Literature of Nonviolent Resistance and Civilian-Based Defense." 1994. Humane Studies Review 9 (1), 1-7, 10-12.
  • "Autocratic Ghosts and Chinese Hunger: A Review Essay of Autocratic Tradition and Chinese Politics by Zhengyuan Fu and Hungry Ghosts by Jasper Becker." 2000. Independent Review 4 (3), 431-38.
  • "Have the Experts Been Weighed, Measured, and Found Wanting?" (Review Essay on Philip Tetlock 's Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?) 2007. Critical Review 19 (1), 80-91.
  • "Economists Versus the Public on Economic Policy," "Rational Ignorance," and "Rational Irrationality" in Rowley, Charles, and Friedrich Schneider (eds.): 2004. The Encyclopedia of Public Choice. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
  • "Frederic Bastiat," "Competition," "Libertarian," "Fascism," and "Ayn Rand" in Syed Hussain (ed.): 2004. Encyclopedia of Capitalism. NY: Facts on File.
  • "Ayn Rand and Public Choice: The Obvious Parallels," in Edward Younkins (ed.): 2007. Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged": A Philosophical and Literary Companion. Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Company, pp. 225-34.
  • "Communism" and "Externalities" in David Henderson (ed.): 2008. The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Indianapolis, IN, 66-9, 169-72.
  • "The Totalitarian Threat" in Nick Bostrom and Milan Ćirković (eds.): Global Catastrophic Risks. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 504-519.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Introductory Texts: Let Everyone Take Work, Anywhere! ' We're sitting on a mountain of talent
  2. ↑ Why Should We Restrict Immigration? Cato Journal Winter 2012 Vol. 32 No. 1
  3. ↑ Bryan Caplan and Vipul Naik: A Radical Case for Open Borders
    • Chapter 8 in The Economics of Immigration Market-Based Approaches, Social Science, and Public Policy . Oxford University Press, 2015. ISBN 978-0-19025-879-5 . Edited by Benjamin W. Powell, Oxford University Press
  4. ↑ Open Borders. The Science and Ethics of Immigration. 2019
  5. ↑ Anarchist Theory FAQ
  6. ^ Museum of Communism
personal data
SURNAME Caplan, Bryan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Caplan, Bryan Douglas (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American economist
DATE OF BIRTH April 8, 1971
PLACE OF BIRTH Northridge , California