The Myth of the Rational Voter

Economist Bryan Caplan argues that the quality of policymaking in democracies is poor because the incentives facing voters encourage them to choose irrationally.

Bryan Caplan

Bryan Caplan is a Professor of Economics at George Mason University and a New York Times Bestselling author.

Caplan is the author of The Myth of the Rational Voter, named “the best political book of the year” by the New York Times, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, The Case Against Education, Open Borders (co-​authored with SMBC’s Zach Weinersmith), Build, Baby, Build (co-​authored with Ady Branzei), Labor Econ Versus the World, How Evil Are Politicians?, Don’t Be a Feminist, Voters As Mad Scientists, You Will Not Stampede Me, and Self-​Help Is Like a Vaccine. He is currently writing Unbeatable: The Brutally Honest Case for Free Markets.

Caplan is the editor and chief writer for Bet On It, the blog hosted by the Salem Center for Policy at the University of Texas. His work has been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, TIME, Newsweek, Atlantic, American Economic Review, Economic Journal, Journal of Law and Economics, and Intelligence. Caplan blogged for EconLog from 2005-2022, and he has appeared on ABC, BBC, Fox News, MSNBC, and C-SPAN.

An openly nerdy man who loves role-​playing games and graphic novels, he lives in Oakton, Virginia, with his wife and four kids.

Scott Keeter
Will Wilkinson

Will Wilkinson is a Canadian American libertarian writer and former research fellow and managing editor at the Cato Institute. His political philosophy is described by The American Conservative magazine as “Rawlsekian,” a mixture of John Rawls’s principles and Friedrich von Hayek’s methods.

Featuring Bryan Caplan, Associate Professor of Economics, George Mason University, with comments by Scott Keeter, Director of Survey Research, Pew Research Center, Coauthor of What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters, and Will Wilkinson, Policy Analyst and Managing Editor of Cato Unbound, Cato Institute. In his groundbreaking new book, The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, economist Bryan Caplan of George Mason University argues that the quality of policymaking in democracies is poor because the incentives facing voters encourage them to choose irrationally. Drawing on survey evidence, Caplan shows that voters are systematically biased in favor of certain harmful economic policies and argues that the scope of democratic choice should be limited.