Review of The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies by Bryan Caplan

Abstract

All serious students of political economy should read The Myth of the Rational Voter. It attempts to answer one of the most important questions in political economy – why democracies choose bad policies. Caplan’s answer is bold. He claims that governments do not fail to produce good outcomes because of special interests or self-interested bureaucrats or politicians. Instead, he argues that voters largely get the policies they want, but voter beliefs on economic issues are irrational and systematically biased. He does this while arguing that even though traditional neoclassical theory assumes rationality, he is well within that framework. Voters are rationally irrational.