Bryan Caplan's Blog, page 136

Prosecuting Truancy, by Bryan Caplan

How are compulsory attendance laws actually enforced?  A preliminary search turned up some surprising claims, especially this:

Truancy charges can result in large fines, jail time, and a criminal record for students in Texas--one of
only two states (along with Wyoming) that prosecute truancy as a crime in adult courts. Adult courts do not provide
the same protections as civil juvenile courts, including a right to appointed counsel.



Texas adult courts pursued about 113,000 truancy cases against Texas children ages 12-17 in FY 2012--
more than double the number of truancy cases prosecuted that year in the other 49 states combined.

Dallas County operates the largest truancy court system in Texas. Almost three-quarters of the courts'
budget is supported by truancy fines assessed students and parents. In FY 2012, Dallas Country truancy courts
collected $2.9 million in fines, according to county reports.



Last year alone, Dallas County truancy courts prosecuted over 36,000 truancy cases--more than any other
Texas county and nearly three times more than Harris County, home to the state's largest school district (Houston
ISD).

Yes, these claims come from a legal complaint filed against some Texas school districts.  But since these are narrowly legal claims rather than statistical inference, I'm inclined to trust them.  Anyone know more?  What's going on in other states?  Please show your work.

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An Odd A Priori Argument Against Private Education, by Bryan Caplan

In her chapter on crime in The Social Benefits of Education (Behrman and Stacey, eds., 1997), Ann Dryden Witte provides an argument against private education likely to win many economists' immediate assent:

Consider a world in which there were no public interventions aimed at socializing children.  In such a world, each family would decide how much to educate its children in the rules of the game and how much to supervise its children's behavior.  In making these decisions, the family would consider the socializing influence of education as it affects the family itself (e.g. better-behaved or more future-oriented children).  But it would be unlikely to give sufficient consideration to the benefit to the community as a whole of having young people who obey the rules of the game.  As a result, children would probably be undersocialized.

A few years later, my friend David Balan formalized this argument.  My reaction, however, remains the same: The facts don't fit.  As my referee report on Balan's original article explained:

Is there any empirical evidence that graduates of private schools exhibit lower levels of morality than graduates of public schools? I would suspect the opposite, though admittedly there is a selection problem. But that selection problem itself cuts against the thesis, for it suggests that parents who send their children to private school DO want to inculcate morality. One plausible explanation is that the externalities of morality are largely infra-marginal.

Balan's piece focused on anti-rent-seeking socialization, but the same holds for crime, teen pregnancy, work ethic, and much more: If anything, private schools place more emphasis on good conduct, not less.  You might think that public schools would at least place more emphasis on patriotism and civics, but even that's far from clear.  How often do religious schools even mention he potential conflict between piety and nationalism, much less urge students to make their faith their primary allegiance?  As far as I can tell, most religious schools try to instill love of God and Country, not denigrate the latter passion at the expense of the former.
You could respond, "Before the 1960s, American public schools placed far more emphasis on socialization."  This is plausible, but note: The famous relevant Supreme Court cases expelled God from public schools, but never lifted a finger against the secular religion of American Democracy.  During the heyday of public school socialization, public schools looked more like religious schools, not less.
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Diseases of Poverty: Neglecting the Obvious, by Bryan Caplan

Before blogging Ebola, I've been reading up on the broader category of "diseases of poverty."  The low-point of the Wikipedia entry:

There are a number of proposals for reducing the diseases of poverty and
eliminating health disparities within and between countries. The World
Health Organization proposes closing the gaps by acting on social
determinants.
Their first recommendation is to improve daily living conditions. This
area involves improving the lives of women and girls so that their
children are born in healthy environments and placing an emphasis on
early childhood health. Their second recommendation is to tackle the
inequitable distribution of money, power and resources. This would
involve building stronger public sectors and changing the way in which
society is organized. Their third recommendation is to measure and
understand the problem and assess the impact of action. This would
involve training policy makers and healthcare practitioners to recognize
problems and form policy solutions.

On etymology alone, you'd think that economic growth - i.e., producing more wealth per person - would top the list of cures for "diseases of poverty."  But it isn't even mentioned.  Instead, we get to choose between:

1. Targeted redistribution to women and children.

2. General redistribution/bigger public sectors.

3. Better policy evaluation and training of policymakers and health workers.

It's almost like the last two centuries never happened.  Quick recap: During the last two hundred years, living standards exploded even though the distribution of income remained quite unequal.  How is such a thing possible?  Because total production per person drastically increased.  During this era, no country escaped dire poverty via redistribution, but many escaped dire poverty via increased production.  And while the effect of moderate redistributive policies on growth is unclear, there is no doubt that populist and socialist movements determined to "tackle the
inequitable distribution of money, power and resources" and "change the way that society is organized" sharply retard growth.  As I told the Gates Foundation when they asked for my input:

Anyone
serious about reducing world poverty must come to grips with a single key fact:
Redistribution from rich to poor has not and cannot solve more than a tiny
fraction of the problem.  Even if you
could perfectly equalize income in
Third World nations with zero effect
on production, the citizens of Third World countries would remain mired in
poverty.  Take Bangladesh.  With a GDP of $256B and a population of 164M,
equalization would at best give each citizen an income of $1561 per year -
about $4 a day.  Countries do not overcome
poverty by sharing production more equally. 
They overcome poverty by increasing production - what economists call "economic
growth."

Diseases of poverty are sadly real, but happily curable.  Avoiding populism and socialism is a good first start.  Economic freedom, especially for reviled multinational corporations, is also vital.  And if First World countries want to lend a hand, nothing cures global poverty faster than open borders.

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The Bribes of Columbus, by Bryan Caplan

Christopher Columbus, a slaver and a murderer, exemplifies Western civilization at its worst.  Out of all the efforts to excuse his crimes, the most bizarre I've heard goes something like this:

As a resident of the modern United States, you have immensely benefited from everything Columbus did.  If Europeans hadn't dispossessed the New World's native inhabitants, you wouldn't enjoy the comfort and security you take for granted.  Given this debt of gratitude you owe Columbus, you are morally required to hold your tongue - if not actively defend the man.

Mainstream philosophers' main objection to this argument, I suspect, is that it proves too much.  As the literature on the non-identity problem emphasizes, none of us would even exist if any major historical event prior to our conception had been different.  Even the descendents of Incan royalty are better off because of Columbus, because if Columbus hadn't existed, their ancestors would have had sex under slightly (or greatly) different circumstances, so their modern heirs never would have been conceived in the first place.

A fine point, but it misses the deeper absurdity of the "show Columbus proper gratitude" argument.  Suppose you're on a jury for a blatantly guilty murderer.  If he tries to bribe you to acquit him, you should obviously refuse.  But what if the murderer gives you a bribe you can't refuse?  For example, the murderer could loudly donate to your favorite charity.  Are you then morally obliged to reciprocate by letting him get away with murder?

Whatever benefits the living now enjoy thanks to Columbus are morally equivalent to such a bribe.  We don't have the power to undo whatever the man did for us before we were born.  We do however have the power to render an honest verdict despite his jury tampering.  And that is precisely what integrity requires.  Whatever Columbus did for us, the verdict is Guilty.

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Conservative Relativism, by Bryan Caplan

I spent a lot of time conversing with conservative intellectuals this week.  What surprised me most was their moral relativism.  Sure, they spent a lot of time griping about left-wing relativism: The awful liberals refuse to admit the West is morally superior to Islamic and other non-Western cultures - or the United States is morally superior to Europe's decadent social democracies.  But the conservatives were also quick to dismiss claims about Western and American moral failings.  The U.S. immigration laws of the 1920's were explicitly driven by Nordic racism?  Let's not "flagellate" ourselves; that was fixed long ago.  The genocide of the Indians?  That was the price of civilization.  George Washington, "father of our country," was a slaver?  Well, it was common at the time.  The West's murderous Crusades?  Eh, whatever.

The conservatives could have objected that they're looking at the big picture; in the broad scheme of things, Christian holy war, the Founders' slave-holding, the Indians wars, and U.S. racism were no big deal.  But each of these moral lapses - even the Nordic racism - led to massive body counts.  It wasn't like stealing a cookie.  The conservative could more plausibly point out that only a small fraction of Western and American resources were devoted to sheer wickedness.  But the same holds for most notorious criminals: Over 99% of the typical serial killer's days are murder-free. 

Don't these puritanical standards deprive us of heroes?  No, but they do heavily thin the applicant pool, for reasons identified by Lord Acton:

I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope
and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they did no wrong.
If there is any presumption it is against the holders of power, increasing as
the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for want of legal
responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Great men are almost always bad men...

I'm not saying that conservatives' complaints about liberals are unfair.  My claim, rather, is that both ideologies have parallel blind spots.  The liberal mistake is ignoring all the ways that Western civilization and the United States have been better than the competition.  The conservative mistake is ignoring all the ways that Western civilization and the United States have been awful.  In slogan form: "Better" is not "good."

Fortunately, to quote Vanilla Sky, "Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around."  Columbus Day is tomorrow.  It's a great opportunity for conservatives who reject moral relativism to break ranks and stop pretending this historic criminal was a hero.

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Risk Analysis in One Lesson, by Bryan Caplan

Mueller and Stewart's new piece on "Responsible Counterterrorism Policy" doubles as a great primer on risk analysis:

Terrorism is a hazard to human life, and it should be dealt with in a manner similar to that applied to other hazards--albeit with a appreciation for the fact that terrorism often evokes extraordinary fear and anxiety. However, although allowing emotion to overwhelm sensible analysis is both understandable and common among ordinary people, it is not appropriate for officials charged with--and responsible for--keeping them safe.

[...]

Risk analysis is an aid to responsible decisionmaking that has been developed, codified, and applied over the past few decades--or in some respects centuries.

Mueller and Stewart provide invaluable information on relative risks.  Terrorism, as all numerate folk know, continues to be a microscopic danger:



Mueller and Stewart also explain one of risk analysis' simplest outputs: estimates of "cost per life saved":

When regulators propose a new rule or regulation to enhance safety, they are routinely required to estimate how much it will cost to save a single life under their proposal. Table 1 supplies information about how that calculation comes out for dozens of government rules and regulations in the United States.

Some standard results:


Good to know.  But reviewing the basics of risk analysis reminds me of a question I've never seen addressed: What about all the utterly ineffective and counter-productive risk regulations?  A $1 regulation that, on balance, kills one person has a cost-per-life-saved of infinity.  Surely some such regulations exist?

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Getting a B.A. and Living With Your Parents, by Bryan Caplan

The most surprising figure in Arum and Roksa's new Aspiring Adults Adrift :


Yes, lots of newly-minted college grads live with their parents.  Yes, the fraction of college grads who live with their parents has sharply increased.  But at least for 22-24 year-olds, the lines for college grads and non-college-grads have almost exactly overlapped without interruption for over a half-century. 

Explain that!

P.S. Wednesday I'll be speaking at St. Vincent's College on open borders, so I probably won't be blogging again until the end of the week.  If you see me there, or wandering around Pittsburgh, please introduce yourself. :-)

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Aging Out of Addiction, by Bryan Caplan

I've known about "aging out" for ages, but former addict and neuroscience journalist Maia Szalavitz eloquently boils down the evidence:

According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, addiction
is "a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory, and
related circuitry." However, that's not what the epidemiology of the
disorder suggests. By age 35, half of all people who qualified for
active alcoholism or addiction diagnoses during their teens and 20s no longer do, according to a study of over 42,000 Americans in a sample designed to represent the adult population.

The average cocaine addiction lasts four years, the average marijuana
addiction lasts six years, and the average alcohol addiction is resolved within 15 years. Heroin addictions tend to last as long as alcoholism, but prescription opioid problems, on average, last five years.
In these large samples, which are drawn from the general population,
only a quarter of people who recover have ever sought assistance in
doing so (including via 12-step programs). This actually makes addictions the psychiatric disorder with the highest odds of recovery.

While some addictions clearly do take a chronic course, this data, which replicates earlier research,
suggests that many do not. And this remains true even for people like
me, who have used drugs in such high, frequent doses and in such a
compulsive fashion that it is hard to argue that we "weren't really
addicted." I don't know many non-addicts who shoot up 40 times a day,
get suspended from college for dealing, and spend several months in a
methadone program.

She continues:

Moreover, if addiction were truly a progressive disease, the data
should show that the odds of quitting get worse over time. In fact, they
remain the same on an annual basis, which means that as people get
older, a higher and higher percentage wind up in recovery. If your
addiction really is "doing push-ups" while you sit in AA meetings, it
should get harder, not easier, to quit over time. (This is not an
argument in favor of relapsing; it simply means that your odds of
recovery actually get better with age!)

So why do so many people still see addiction as hopeless? One reason
is a phenomenon known as "the clinician's error," which could also be
known as the "journalist's error" because it is so frequently replicated
in reporting on drugs. That is, journalists and rehabs tend to see the
extremes: Given the expensive and often harsh nature of treatment, if
you can quit on your own you probably will. And it will be hard for
journalists or treatment providers to find you.

Similarly, if your only knowledge of alcohol came from working in an ER on Saturday nights, you might start thinking that prohibition is a good idea.
All you would see are overdoses, DTs (delirium tremens), or car crash,
rape, or assault victims. You wouldn't be aware of the patients whose
alcohol use wasn't causing problems. And so, although the overwhelming
majority of alcohol users drink responsibly, your "clinical" picture of
what the drug does would be distorted by the source of your sample of
drinkers.

Treatment providers get a similarly skewed view of addicts: The
people who keep coming back aren't typical--they're simply the ones who
need the most help. Basing your concept of addiction only on people who
chronically relapse creates an overly pessimistic picture.

Szalavitz does not discuss the equally fascinating "contingency management" literature that documents the strong effect of incentives on substance abuse.  But both bodies of evidence point in the same Szaszian direction: despite addicts' self-serving excuses, addiction is a choice - a choice to be immature.

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Rojas on Marijuana Legalization, by Bryan Caplan

Support for marijuana legalization was stalled for decades, then skyrocketed.  What happened?  Vox's latest analysis heavily relies on sociologist Fabio Rojas, also known as the Best Man at my wedding.  Highlights:

Fabio Rojas, a professor at Indiana University who studies social
movements, said that these movements tend to be driven by ballot
initiatives, lobbying of policymakers, or mass protests that raise
awareness.

Up to this point, the marijuana legalization movement has largely
relied on ballot initiatives to change state laws. Colorado and
Washington voters legalized marijuana at the polls in 2012, and legalization measures are on the ballot in Alaska, Oregon, and Washington, DC, in November.

How did the U.S. break out of the anti-legalization equilibrium?

Rojas of Indiana University suggested the advancements of the
movement could be a self-perpetuating cycle: As more states legalized
medical marijuana, Americans saw that the risks of allowing medicinal
use didn't come to fruition as opponents warned. That reinforced support
for medical marijuana, which then made politicians more comfortable
with their own support for reform.

A similar cycle could be playing out with full legalization, Rojas
explained. As voters see medical marijuana and legalization can happen
without major hitches, they might be more likely to start supporting
full legalization.

"People said, 'Okay, now that someone else is throwing this out in
public, it's okay for me to vote for it or approve it,'" Rojas said.
"That's probably the main driving force: using the electoral system to
push ideas that people may be afraid to think about or consider because
they're illegitimate -- or at least they were."

The rapid change in public opinion could have been helped along by
the internet, which allows people to share stories about their own pot
use, research about the issue, and states' experiences with relaxed
marijuana laws much more quickly.

"When I was a college student around 1990, other than hardcore
political wonky types, ... nobody really talk about drug legalization,"
Rojas said. "Now, you can go on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, and
people can share a news story. You get exposed to it constantly."

Then what's taking so long?

Rojas of Indiana University indicated the lack of support from
lawmakers reflects the strong establishment support -- and financial
incentives -- behind marijuana prohibition. Police departments, for
instance, get to fight the war on drugs. If marijuana was legal, some of that money for police departments could dry up.

"In the case of gay rights, people have a prejudice against gays, but
there are very few people who draw a paycheck out of it," Rojas said.
"When it comes to drugs, lots of people are drawing paychecks from it."

Unlike other social movements, marijuana legalization also doesn't
have a civil rights claim built into it. With same-sex marriage, a gay
or lesbian couple can intuitively argue that they should be able to use
their fundamental right to marry who they want to receive equal benefits under the law. The civil rights issues surrounding marijuana, such as the disproportionate enforcement of the law on black communities, are more nuanced and less intuitively linked to legalization.

"When it comes to [marriage] rights, it's the freedom to do the right
thing," Rojas said. "When you're talking about a personal vice like
drinking alcohol or smoking drugs, that's the freedom to do wrong."

Mueller and Wilkinson are rhetorical exceptions that prove Rojas' rule.

P.S. I'm still waiting for Tyler to bet me on marijuana legalization.  I say it's coming, parents notwithstanding.

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The Ultimate Incivility, by Bryan Caplan

I've long believed that human beings are overly touchy.  Many actively look for excuses to take offense.  This excess negativity isn't just unpleasant.  Due to the scarcity of attention and patience, unreasonable offense frequently crowds out reasonable offense.  It's no coincidence that straining gnats positively correlates with swallowing camels.

Rather than bemoan our loss of perspective, I'd like to rebalance the scales of offense.  My two central maxims:

First, remain calm when someone questions people's ideas or behavior.  After all, maybe their ideas are false, and maybe their behavior is wrong. 

Second, take offense when someone questions people's presence or existence.  When you complain about a person's being around irrespective of their behavior, you go too far.  Think of Braveheart's King Longshanks sneering, "The problem with Scotland... is that it's full of Scots!"

Do our contemporaries really cross this line?  All the time.  When my kids book came out, plenty of folks remarked, "Well, some people should be having fewer kids."  They weren't joking, and offered no constructive criticism of their fellow men.  Instead, they dreamed of a world where some living, breathing children had never been born.  That is not cool.

The same goes, of course, for mainstream conversations about immigration.  Sure, people enumerate specific complaints about foreigners' ideas and behavior.  But the goal is not to change foreigners' minds or reform their behavior - hence near-universal apathy for keyhole solutions.  The goal, rather, is to rationalize deportation and exclusion of foreigners, regardless of how they comport themselves.

An old adage urges us to "Hate the sin but love the sinner."  My standards of civility are much less demanding but follow the same format.  Getting rid of bad ideas and bad behavior is a worthy goal.  Trying to get rid of people themselves, however, is the ultimate incivility.

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