Bryan Caplan

Bryan Caplan

Public choice
Born	April 8, 1971 (1971-04-08) Northridge, California
Nationality	United States
Influences	Donald Wittman, Ayn Rand, David D. Friedman, Murray Rothbard, Tyler Cowen, Gordon Tullock
Contributions	Rational Irrationality

Bryan Caplan (born April 8, 1971) is an American economist, a Professor of Economics at George Mason University, Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center, adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute, and blogger for Econlog. He is best known for his work in public choice theory and for his libertarian ideology.

Personal life

Caplan grew up in Northridge, California. He currently lives in Oakton, Virginia with his wife and three sons. He describes himself as being type ENTJ on the MBTI and as an "openly nerdy man." He is the author of one graphic novel and several role-playing game campaigns. He has described role-playing games as "an art form, on par with novels, or movies, or comics" and has been published in Dragon magazine.

According to Caplan, he was first introduced to libertarian political philosophy through the writings of Ayn Rand and that it was his interest in philosophy that drew him to study economics.

Academic career

Caplan earned a B.A. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1993 and a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University in 1997. Since then, he has spent his entire career at George Mason University.

Austrian economics

Caplan considered himself an Austrian economist before graduate school, and much of his work draws upon themes in Austrian economics. Nevertheless, most of his academic work on Austrian economics is critical. He has written that "while self-labeled Austrian economists have some valid contributions to make to economics, these are simply not distinctive enough to sustain a school of thought. The task of developing an alternate Austrian paradigm has largely failed, producing an abundance of meta-economics (philosophy, methodology, and history of thought), but few substantive results."

Public choice

The bulk of Caplan's academic work is in public economics, especially public choice theory. He has agreed with political economist Donald Wittman that traditional public choice has reached conclusions inconsistent with the canonical assumption of voter rationality; many of his publications examine the effects of relaxing this assumption, an idea Caplan dubbed rational irrationality. In a series of exchanges with Wittman, Caplan defended many of the conclusions of public choice while agreeing that Wittman's criticisms hold under the assumption of voter rationality. Caplan has also done empirical work on public opinion which suggests voters indeed hold systematically biased views about economics. His book, The Myth of the Rational Voter, provides a detailed account of Caplan's theory of rational irrationality as well as his summary of some empirical evidence of voters' systemically biased beliefs about economics.

Author

Myth of the Rational Voter

The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, published in 2007, further develops the "rational irrationality" concept from Caplan's earlier academic writing. It draws heavily from the Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy in making the argument that voters have systematically biased beliefs about many important economic topics. Caplan argues that voters indulge these biases at the polls, creating a negative externality because they do not directly bear the full cost of their action.

Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids

Caplan's second book, published in 2011, argues that the cost of having children is lower than most people believe and many potential parents could increase their welfare by having more. It is his first book written for a general audience, although it draws heavily from the academic literature in behavioral genetics, particularly twin and adoption studies which are relevant to the nature versus nurture debate.

Future projects

Caplan's next planned book has the working title The Case Against Education: A Professional Student Explains Why Our Education System is a Big Waste of Time and Money; he has previously argued that almost all of education is inefficient signaling. Caplan has outlined book projects to follow will deal with the root causes of poverty (Poverty: Who to Blame) and presenting a philosophical / economic case for pacifism (Pragmatic Pacifism: The Realism of Idealism). While he still publishes occasionally in professional journals, he has shifted his focus almost entirely to books.

Political views

Caplan is an anarcho-capitalist, citing influences such as Murray Rothbard and David D. Friedman, and has written on the feasibility and desirability of a stateless society. He promotes austerity for marginal reform and is a vocal proponent of open borders. Despite his pacifist position and radical libertarian ideology, he has criticized left-libertarianism. He has also criticized some economists' (such as his colleague Robin Hanson) use of an efficiency-only moral standard, advocating instead ethical intuitionism with efficiency considerations secondary to moral principles.

Controversies

Caplan wrote an essay entitled "Columbus: The Far Left is Dead Right" to explain why his agreement with the far-left on Christopher Columbus was unusual. Caplan decried some of Columbus's defenders for engaging in cultural relativism to defend his policies of mass enslavement.

In April 2010, he caused controversy with a blog post that argued that women were more free in the 1880s than they are in the 21st century. This post led Bradford DeLong to call Caplan "the stupidest man alive".

Selected works

Books

• The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies. 2007. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Named a Best Book of 2007 by the Financial Times)
• The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies. 2008. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Paperback edition with a new introduction by the author.]
• Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think. New York, NY: Basic Books. 2011.

Journal articles

• "Rational Irrationality: A Framework for the Neoclassical-Behavioral Debate." Spring 2000. Eastern Economic Journal 26(2), pp. 191–211.
• " Rational Ignorance versus Rational Irrationality." 2001. Kyklos 54(1), pp. 3–26. (lead article)
• "Rational Irrationality and the Microfoundations of Political Failure." June 2001. Public Choice 107 (3/4), pp. 311–331.
• "The Logic of Collective Belief." May 2003. Rationality and Society 15(2), pp. 218–42.
• "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), pp. 367–81.

External links

• Bryan Caplan's Website
• The EconLog blog
• "The Myth of the Rational Voter" (essay)
• Anarchist Theory FAQ
• Why conservatives should be libertarians
• Intellectual Autobiography of Bryan Caplan by Bryan Caplan
• Why I am not an Austrian economist
• Caplan on voting Caplan discusses his book on EconTalk
• Caplan on labor markets Caplan discusses labor markets on EconTalk
• Caplan on voter ignorance on NPR Caplan discusses voter ignorance on NPR
• Video of interview/discussion with Caplan by Will Wilkinson on Bloggingheads.tv