The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies. By BRYAN CAPLAN

In The Myth of the Rational Voter, Bryan Caplan challenges economic models explaining voter behavior. His interdisciplinary analysis features empirical evidence reflecting deviation in economic beliefs between the general population and economists. The deviation in beliefs supports suspicions that he general public embodies biases that adversely affect policy formation i democracies. Although the book is accessible to all analysts familiar with economics and political science, the intended audience seems to be academic economists slow to incorporate compelling empirical results challenging the rationality assumption. The miracle of aggregation is a popular retort to concerns regarding voter ignorance and apathy, behaviors economists argue to be rational given the costs in excess of benefits associated with political intelligence and low probability of determining an election. Caplan observes that he miracle of aggregation is feasible only if voters are systematically wrong thereby canceling each other out in a two candidate lection and leaving informed voters to determine election outcomes. It is assumed that he median voter is right and thus, the miracle is that good policy emerges despite apathy and ignorance. Unfortunately, biases resulting in unsystematic error may fail to cancel the effects of the misinformed general public and overwhelm informed voters resulting in bad policy based on incorrect beliefs. The empirical question is: does the general public hold biased economic beliefs? Caplan identifies four commonly suspected biases of the general public that deviate from the economic beliefs of economists. The antimarket bias tends to underestimate he benefits of the marketplace. This bias seems to emerge from a distrust of profit-seeking and ignores that profits exist and persist only for firms that deliver value to customers. The antiforeign bias reflects underestimation of the benefits of interaction with foreigners. This bias is motivated by belief that foreigners exploit us despite our voluntarily engagement with them. The more different foreigners look, act, or speak, the more nefarious their intentions must be. The make-work bias values employment over productivity. The value of workers is necessarily a function of the worker's output. Strangely, consumers value labor saving appliances but fear labor savings, if jobs appear lost. The pessimistic bias reflects a tendency overstate economic challenges and understate future prospects. Caplan argues that these biases crush the hope implied by the miracle of aggregation and explain the persistence of bad economic policies in democracies. In addition to compelling intuition and integration of an interdisciplinary literature, the contribution of this book is the empirical evidence supporting the accusation of bias. Caplan uses the Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy (SAEE) produced by the Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University Survey Project to compare the economic beliefs of economists and non-economists. The analysis is enhanced by controlling for selfserving and ideological beliefs of economists. Caplan refers to this adjusted belief as the Enlightened Public, in contrast o Economists and the General Public. Review of survey results reveals that the General Public deviates from Economists and the Enlightened Public on nearly all questions. A technical appendix explains estimation of the Enlightened Public beliefs. Empowered by the underlying behavioral assumption of rationality, Public Choice economics represents application of the prevailing neoclassical (rational choice) model to politics and voting behavior. The implication of Public Choice is that political ignorance is rational because the cost to reverse ignorance exceeds the benefit associated with political intelligence. Caplan finds Public Choice unsatisfying and argues instead that political actors are rationally irrational. The notion of rational irrationality is inspired by recognition that economic policy is a public good. When a consumer makes a bad purchase, it is the consumer who bares the full cost. In contrast, when voters vote for bad economic policy, each voter can expect to incur only a tiny fraction of the total cost to society. Accordingly, the utility associated with an irrational vote may easily exceed the expected cost to any individual voter, especially when one considers the low probability