Bryan Caplan's Blog, page 41

The One Big Fact that Overawes All Doubts

How do I pick book topics?  On reflection, I usually start with what appears to be a big blatant neglected fact.  Then I try to discover whether anything in the universe is big enough to explain this alleged fact away.  If a laborious search uncovers nothing sufficient, I am left with the seed of a book: One Big Fact that Overawes All Doubts.

Thus, my Myth of the Rational Voter starts with what appears to be a big blatant neglected fact: the typical voter seems highly irrational.  He uses deeply flawed intellectual metho...

Nonlinear Parking Pricing Now!

Parking meters rarely allow you to buy as much time as you like.  Instead, they impose a maximum time quantity of 1 hour, 2 hours, or 4 hours.  Why bother?  The standard story is that nearby merchants don’t really want people who come to park.  They want people who come to shop.  Quantity restrictions keep out commuters – and leaves space for folks who want to swing by and spend some money.

As long as you charge parkers with traditional coin-operated meters, there’s no easy way to appease local merchants.  With parki...

The Rent Is Too Damn Highlights

An agricultural economy starved of land will suffer. An industrial economy starved of raw materials will suffer. And a service economy starved of proximity will suffer. -- Matt Yglesias, The Rent Is Too Damn High

 

Since I’m tooling up to write Poverty: Who To Blame, I decided to finally read The Rent Is Too Damn High, the 2012 e-book by Matt Yglesias.  I expected it to be good, but it was still better than I expected.  True, wise, and quotable.

The thesis should be familiar to EconLog readers: Housing and land-use regulations have insa...

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Open Borders in Foreign Policy

I’ve got a new piece in Foreign Policy, with brand-new illustrations by my collaborator Zach Weinersmith.  Highlight:

The standard explanation for these asymmetric public reactions is that resistance to immigration is primarily cultural and political, not economic or logistical. While West Germans welcomed millions of East German migrants, a much lower dose of Middle Eastern and African migration has made the whole EU shiver. Aren’t economists who dwell on economic gains just missing the point?

Yes and no. As a matter of po...

in Foreign

Do You Talk About It in Open Borders Yes!

The modal question about Open Borders is, “Do you talk about X?”  The answer is “YES” for all of the following…

1. Do you talk about the historical pattern of global poverty rates?

2. Do you talk about people’s attachment to their country of birth?

3. Do you talk about overcrowding?

4. Do you talk about the global poor’s ability to function in a modern society?

5. Do you talk about global apartheid?

6. Do you talk about the level of illegal immigration?

7. Do you talk about human smuggling?

8. Do you talk about the effectiveness of immigration law at preventing and deterr...

Open Borders for Liberals

Some of your liberal friends don’t want to read Open Borders?  Perhaps this page will pique their interest…

The post Open Borders for Liberals appeared first on Econlib.

Open Borders for Conservatives

Some of your conservative friends don’t want to read Open Borders?  Perhaps this page will pique their interest…

The post Open Borders for Conservatives appeared first on Econlib.

How Republicans Can Win Back the Immigrant Vote

Today’s immigrant voters are heavily Democratic, but ’twas not always so.  As Open Borders explains, immigrants were almost evenly split during the Reagan era.  It’s not hard to see why.  At least rhetorically, Reagan nearly endorsed open borders:

I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of...

Open Borders: Hopes and Fears on Release Day

My first graphic novel, Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration, co-authored with the great Zach Weinersmith, releases today.  Since I’ve already shared the backstory, today I’ll share my hopes and fears.

All of my books have been controversial.  Yet so far, almost no prominent critic has accused any of my books of being “ideological” or “dogmatic.”  Instead, they open the books and engage the arguments.  As a result, even staunch critics almost always find some common ground.  Few deny me a minimal, “While he goes too far, some...

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How Open Borders Measures Up

Ten years ago, I published “Seven Guidelines for Writing Worthy Non-Fiction.”  Since my new Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration (co-authored with Zach Weinersmith) releases tomorrow, I decided to re-read my guidelines and do some soul-searching.  Here are my guidelines – and my self-evaluation.

1. Pick an important topic.  Immigration restrictions deprive billions of their basic rights to live and work where they like, and vastly decrease the wealth of the world.  So the great importance of my topic is not in doubt.

2. Learn a lot about your...

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